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Screenshot from the film. Louis Wolheim plays the boss of the railroad yard in Miles City, Montana. The film opens with a landslide across the tracks in Montana, and a repair crew is dispatched to clear the tracks. Several hobos are lounging nearby and are put to work helping the repair crew. One of the hobos, played by Robert Armstrong, is discovered to have been a former railroad engineer who lost his job due to insubordination. He is given a new job for the railroad by the yard boss, but quickly falls in love with the boss's fiancée, played by Jean Arthur. Jealousy grows between the two over the affections of Arthur with both of them attempting to win her in marriage. Things come to a head during a fight in the railroad yard between the two, during which Wolheim is hit by a train and injured. To save his life, Armstrong must transport him in record time to Chicago for surgery. 

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A gang of robbers are terrorizing and robbing banks and payrolls in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. The gang's leader, George, seems to take particular delight in "bumping off" women who cross him. The film starts with comments from then-governors of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland about how crime doesn't pay. 

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Slim, a farmer from southeastern Ohio, becomes fascinated by a crew of linemen erecting transmission towers across his uncle and aunt's property. He asks Pop (J. Farrell MacDonald) for a job, but there are no openings. When a man is fired, however, Red (Pat O'Brien), Pop's best lineman, takes a liking to Slim and persuades Pop to give him a chance as a "grunt", an assistant on the ground who sends up tools and parts. Red and Stumpy (Stuart Erwin), another grunt, teach Slim what he needs to know. Slim wins the respect of Red and Pop when he spots cheating during a poker game and pitches in during the ensuing brawl. When hungover lineman Wyatt Ranstead falls and is killed, Slim is promoted to lineman. The company sends a vice president to investigate the death. To save Pop's job, Red deliberately antagonizes the executive and is fired. Slim gets himself dismissed out of loyalty, and the two go on the road. They head to Chicago to see Red's girlfriend, Cally (Margaret Lindsay) a nurse. The three set out to have a good time (though Red insists on paying for everything). Slim finds himself falling for Cally, and she for him. When Red's money runs out, he and Slim head off to New Mexico for work. Red knows and dislikes one of their fellow linemen, Wilcox (Joe Sawyer). When Red is later offered the job of foreman at another camp, he initially turns it down, but changes his mind when Slim offers to be his "straw boss" (assistant). Wilcox, who had been hoping for the promotion himself, tries to sabotage Red's rope, but Slim stops him. Later, on the ground, Wilcox pulls out a knife and stabs Slim. While Slim is recovering in the hospital, Cally comes to nurse him. They admit they love each other and tell Red they are going to get married. When Slim is offered stable, safe maintenance work, Cally accepts for him. Slim, however, refuses to give up his dangerous profession, and when Pop sends for Red, goes with him. They arrive during a terrible blizzard, and are called out to a substation to restore power, even though there are "hot" wires all around. Red and another man fall to their deaths when a line breaks. Cally joins Slim and once again tries to talk him out of line work. When Slim heads back out into the snow to complete the job, Cally accepts his decision, telling him, "I'll be waiting for you." 

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Huey Walker (Dennis Hopper), a hippie and a former New Left radical (in the vein of Abbie HoffmanSenses of Cinema) who has been on the run from the law for 20 years for something he did not do, disconnecting Spiro Agnew's train car in Spokane, Washington. John Buckner (Kiefer Sutherland) is an FBI agent who is set to transport Walker back to Spokane for trial. Their journey forces them to cross paths with a corrupt Sheriff Hightower and the two end up fleeing for their lives. As the story progresses, it is revealed that Buckner was raised on a communal farm and that his given name is Free. As Buckner learns to reconcile his past with his present, Walker does as well. 

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While reporting a story from India, Patrick Wallingford, a New York television journalist, has his left hand eaten by a lion. Millions of TV viewers witness the accident, and Patrick achieves instant notoriety as "the lion guy". In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon, Dr. Nicholas M. Zajac, awaits the opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant. After watching video of Patrick, Dr. Zajac contacts the journalist and pledges to find a suitable hand donor for him. Doris Clausen, a married woman in Wisconsin, wants to give Patrick Wallingford her husband's left hand—that is, after her husband dies. When her husband later dies from a self- inflicted gunshot wound, Doris immediately rushes the hand to Boston. In the waiting room before the procedure, Doris has sex with Patrick, explaining that she had always wanted to have a child but was unable to with her late husband. The hand is then successfully attached by Dr. Zajac, with unorthodox visitation rights for the hand granted to Doris. Patrick quickly falls in love with Doris, who has his baby, Otto Clausen Junior. Doris, however, will not return Patrick's love, and only allows him to touch her intimately with her late husband's hand, now Patrick's. 

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Mark Watson (Howell) is the pampered son of a rich family who is about to attend Harvard Law School along with his best friend Gordon (Gross). Unfortunately, his father's neurotic psychiatrist talks his patient into having more fun for himself instead of spending money on his son. Faced with the prospect of having to pay for law school by himself, Mark decides to apply for a scholarship, but the only suitable one is for African- Americans only. He decides to cheat by using tanning pills in a larger dose than prescribed to appear as an African-American. Watson then sets out for Harvard, naïvely believing that black people have no problems at all in American society. However, once immersed in a Black student's life, Mark finds out prejudice and racism truly exists. He meets a young African-American student named Sarah Walker (Chong), whom he first only flirts with; gradually, however, he genuinely falls in love with her. In passing, she mentions that he received the scholarship she was in the running for at the last minute. Due to this, she not only has to handle her classes but work as a waitress to support herself and her young son George. Slowly, Mark begins to regret his deed since he has landed in jail under suspicion of stealing his own car, been the subject of stereotypes of black men and pursued by his landlord's daughter and classmate Whitney (Melora Hardin) simply because he's not white. After a chaotic day in which Sarah, his parents (who are not aware of his double life) and Whitney all make surprise visits at the same time, he drops the charade and publicly reveals himself to be white. Most people he has come into contact with realize this makes sense, but Sarah is furious. Once the charade is over, Mark speaks to his professor (Jones). He has learned more than he bargained for since he admits that he didn't know what it was like to truly be black because he could have changed back to being white at any time. Because Mark must forfeit his scholarship, he agrees to loan him the money for school, but with exorbitant interest. He goes to Sarah and begs for another chance, to which she agrees after Mark stands up for her and George when two male students tell a racist joke in front of them. 

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The game takes place in the final months of the 2-year gap presented in the opening of Jak II (and the aftermath of The Precursor Legacy), between the moment when Jak is taken prisoner by the Krimzon Guard and the time in which Daxter finally rescues him from the Krimzon Guard Fortress. The introduction shows Jak being captured, while Daxter manages to escape. Almost two years later (having no luck with rescuing Jak), Daxter has forgotten all about finding his friend. An old man named Osmo, whom Daxter meets, hires Daxter as an exterminator working in various parts of Haven City, and occasionally its environs, to exterminate bug-like Metal Heads referred to in-game as 'Metal Bugs'. During his adventures, Daxter meets a mysterious woman named Taryn who, despite being less than impressed by Daxter's interest in her, occasionally helps him. After completing a number of missions for Osmo, Daxter sees Jak in a Prison Zoomer and attempts to chase after it. After being cornered by some Krimzon Guards (who had noticed Daxter's pursuit), Daxter is rescued by Osmo's son Ximon, who assists him with several more missions including one to Baron Praxis' palace where Daxter steals a map of the Fortress, the prison where Jak is being held. After returning to the extermination shop, an arthropod sidekick that Daxter acquired earlier is killed by Kaeden, a bitter man who seemingly wants to steal Osmo's shop, but, in actuality, is working for Kor, the Metal Head leader. When Daxter tries to stop Kaeden from escaping the shop, Kaeden suddenly blows up the shop with a bomb he placed in the shop earlier. Daxter and Osmo survive, and Daxter promises to stop Kaeden, but only after he rescues Jak. Daxter infiltrates the Fortress and finds Kaeden, who reveals himself to be a giant Metal Bug. Daxter manages to defeat Kaeden, who tries to warn him that Kor is waiting outside for them, and then uses a hover platform to begin searching for Jak within the Fortress, leading into the opening cutscene from Jak II. After this, the game cuts to a point later in the timeline at Daxter's Naughty Ottsel Bar, where he is recounting the story to Jak, Keira, Samos, Tess, and Taryn. 

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The story revolves around Sam, a dignified, former music hall artist who now works with his elderly trained dog Bella, busking in the West End of London. He lives in a run down goods yard alongside a derelict canal in Nine Elms. Two young children, Liz and Mark, stumble upon his yard whilst out walking. He chases them away, but his manner attracts their attention and, despite his best efforts, they later follow him as he goes off to work pushing his dog and all his busking paraphernalia in an Edwardian pram. Liz and Mark live nearby with their parents, Chrissie and Bob, and baby brother James in a drab, cramped basement flat. Bob works at the local gasworks and the family are desperate to move to a new Council flat. When they're out of school, their mother has little time for Liz and Mark and they find their own adventures together on the streets. Begrudgingly, Sam develops a relationship with the children as they tag along. Having mentioned it in passing, he agrees to take them to visit the pet cemetery in Hyde Park, where he anticipates Bella will be buried someday after an elaborate funeral, the next day on his way to the West End. They also discuss visiting the new flats. During the following day, it becomes clear that Bella is increasingly frail and Sam is worried about her. At the new flats, he tells them how his wife died ten years previously and how his seven grown up children are now scattered all over the world. He has found human beings unreliable throughout his life and “only dogs can be depended upon”. Bella is his best friend and, although getting a new flat was all very well, getting a dog was more important. Between them, they conclude the family needs a dog and, having established the children would look after it properly, Sam agrees to help them get one. The following afternoon, he takes them to Battersea Dogs Home where, posing as their grandfather, he helps them choose a dog. However, Sam is astounded and angry when the home tell him they can only take the dog if it is paid for. The children and Sam leave the home bitterly disappointed and, having admonished the children for telling lies as “he wasn’t their grandfather”, Sam tells them they will have to ask their mum and dad for the money and leaves, humiliated. The children return home despondent and are further discouraged when their mum seems unsympathetic to the idea of getting a dog. The children resolve to try to save the money to get it anyway and make money doing odd jobs. When they next see Sam, he is crotchety, and Bella is very ill. Sam offers to pay them to baby-sit Bella while he is working and having haggled about the fee, they agree. The following day they resolve to visit their dad at work to see if he will give them the balance to pay for their dog, but he tells them he needs to save everything he can if he is to have a hope of getting the flat. They return to Sam who, reluctant to concede that Bella's condition is terminal, agrees to give them the balance they need as an advance for more baby-sitting duties. Next day, they learn they have got the new flat and, together with Sam, collect their dog which they name Battersea. They return home later to be told they should not have bought the dog. They discover that the new flat is in Nine Elms, not the flats they had seen with Sam in Westminster, and that dogs are not allowed. The children run off to Sam's, where they find Sam drunk and in mourning for Bella. They try to give Battersea to Sam, but he rejects it and, when they talk of the majestic funeral for Bella, he laughs and tells them she will go in the dustcart. He leaves and, after tying Battersea to his table, the children take Bella's body, and at night sneak into the cemetery at Hyde Park and bury it there. They hide when their dad and Sam arrive outside the cemetery with Battersea, but fall asleep as the two talk into the night about life, death, dogs and children. When they awake the following morning Dad is overjoyed to see them and they leave Battersea with Sam. 

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The show follows the adventures of the title character, Pac-Man, his wife Pepper Pac- Man (Ms. Pac-Man), their child Pac-Baby, their dog Chomp-Chomp and their cat Sour Puss. The family lives in Pac-Land, a place in which the geography and architecture seem to revolve primarily around sphere-like shapes. Most episodes of the series center around the ongoing battle between the Pac family and their only known enemies, the Ghost Monsters: Blinky, Inky, Pinky, Clyde, and Sue. They work for Mezmaron, whose sole mission is to locate and control the source of "Power Pellets", which serve as the primary food and power source for the city, and also is the deus ex machina in virtually every episode. The second (and final) season later introduces Super-Pac and Pac- Man's teenage cousin P.J. 

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Three kittens, denied milk as punishment for losing their mittens after playing out in the snow, sail up into the Milky Way in a basket lifted by three helium balloons. Once in the Milky Way, they find it a land of natural milk springs and gushers. The kittens proceed to happily gorge themselves on milk, until they end up getting into trouble and risk falling back down to Earth. However, it turns out to be just in their imagination, and their mother comes in to their bedroom to invite them for supper. They rush down excitedly only to be shocked to see that it's milk. 

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Madariaga "The Centaur" (Pomeroy Cannon), a harsh but popular Argentine landowner, has a German son- in-law whom he dislikes and a French one whose family he openly favors. He is particularly fond of his grandson Julio (Rudolph Valentino), with whom he often carouses at seedy dives in the Boca district of Buenos Aires. In one of these bars, the movie's famous tango sequence occurs. A man and a woman (Beatrice Dominguez) are dancing the tango. Julio strides up and asks to cut in. The woman stares at Julio alluringly. The man brushes him off, and they resume dancing. Julio then challenges the man and strikes him, knocking him into some tables and out of the scene. Julio and the woman then dance a dramatic version of the tango that brings cheers from the people in the establishment. Following the dance, the woman sits on Julio's lap. Madariaga then slides to the floor, drunk. The woman laughs at Madariaga. Julio casts her aside in scorn and helps his grandfather home. Sometime later, Madariaga dies. The extended family breaks up, one half returning to Germany and the other to France. In Paris, Julio enjoys a somewhat shiftless life as a would- be artist and sensation at the local tea dances. He falls in love with Marguerite Laurier (Alice Terry), the unhappy and much younger wife (by an arranged marriage) of Etienne Laurier, a friend of Julio's father. The affair is discovered, and Marguerite's husband agrees to give her a divorce to avoid a scandal. It seems as though Julio and Marguerite will be able to marry, but both end up getting caught up in the start of the Great War. The scene where the man upstairs (Nigel de Brulier) shows Julio (Valentino) and his manservant (Bowditch M. Turner) the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Marguerite becomes a nurse in Lourdes. The bravery of Etienne is reported, and he is blinded in battle. Etienne happens to end up at the hospital where she is working, and Marguerite attends to him there. Julio travels to Lourdes to see Marguerite and instead sees her taking care of Etienne. Julio, ashamed of his wastrel life, enlists in the French Army. In the meantime, the German Army overruns Julio's father Marcelo's Marne Valley castle in the First Battle of the Marne. Marcelo is forced to host a German general and staff in the castle. One of Marcelo's three German nephews is amongst the staff and tries to protect him, but Marcelo is arrested after a melee involving an officer's assault of a woman. Marcello is to be executed in the morning, but his life is spared when the French Army counterattacks in the "Miracle of the Marne". The castle is destroyed by the French counterattack. Four years later Julio has survived and become renowned for his bravery in the trenches at the front. During a mission in no man's land, he encounters his last surviving German cousin. Moments later, they are both killed by a shell. Back in Paris, Marguerite considers abandoning the blinded Etienne, but Julio's ghost guides her to continue her care for him. The ending scene shows Marcelo Desnoyers mourning over his son's grave. The man who lived upstairs from Julio watches over him. Marcelo asks him, "Did you know my son?" The man, with a remorseful expression, lifts his arms, forming the shape of a cross with his body, and says "I knew them all!" He then points to the sky and shows Marcelo the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding away into the clouds. With this, the man assures him that "Peace has come—but the Four Horsemen will still ravage humanity—stirring unrest in the world—until all hatred is dead and only love reigns in the heart of mankind." 

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Joint Commissioner of Police Dev Pratap Singh, a duty-bound, self-righteous officer, and Special Commissioner Tejinder Khosla, the balancing force between the political interests of Chief Minister Bhandarker and Dev's commitment to the law, are lifelong friends, each with his own ideals. Farhaan, a law graduate, was brought up with ideals of non-violence and patriotism. Dev unwittingly gives Farhaan the wound that plunges him into rage and violence after witnessing the death of his father during a peace demonstration. Taking advantage of the situation, corrupt politician Latif sets the vulnerable young man on a path of violence and destruction that threatens to ignite the city. Aaliya is the light in Farhaan's life. Beautiful and innocent, the young woman also gets caught in extraordinary circumstances that transform her life and she dares to stand up for the truth. Dev is the saga of Dev and Tej's friendship, a bond stronger than blood ties in which Farhaan emerges as the wedge driving them apart. The story unfolds against the vitiated atmosphere of present times where innocent lives become fodder for political expediency. The spark of terrorist violence unknowingly set off by Farhaan under the aegis of the corrupt politician Latif engulfs the whole city in its flames. Tej transgresses beyond the boundaries of law in his passion to eliminate anti- national crime. Dev is faced with the spectre of the tragic human cost and a moral compulsion to act. The stakes rise beyond self-interest. Dev and Tej are set on a path of dramatic collision. Even as Dev and Farhaan's fate gets irreversibly linked, two soldiers whose allegiance may be to different causes but admiration for each other's courage and integrity brings them together. On a train bound for Bombay from Surat, a Police Inspector questions a young man named Farhaan, who has just obtained his law degree, for his reason to go to Bombay, and whether he has any alliance with Pakistanis. Farhaan answers that he is going to Bombay to live with his father, and he does not know anyone from Pakistan. Farhaan finds out that Bombay Police have been targeting the Muslim community, and in the name of fighting terrorism, have been killing innocent Muslim men, women and children. He comes to know that Joint Commissioner of Police, Dev Pratap Singh, is involved in this witch-hunt, and he would like to kill him. Farhaan joins hands with the local Muslim political leader, Latif, and he is provided training in handling guns, and is subsequently made ready for this task. Unfortunately, Farhaan is unable to kill Dev, who escapes unhurt, albeit a little shaken. Chief Minister Bhandarkar views this incident seriously, and instructs the police to root out terrorist elements in the city, which they do so ruthlessly. Farhaan is told to deliver a package to a man near a Hindu temple, and he does so. While at a stop to buy some snacks, the package explodes, killing several people. Since this incident occurred near a Hindu temple, a right-wing political party member, Mangal Rao, organizes a wave of riots against the Muslim community. Riots take place, and the police are instructed to observe and not prevent the violence. As a result, hundreds are killed. Latif organizes his men to target and attack Hindus and Hindu establishments, rendering the region unsafe, with people being killed in the name of religion. When Hindus and Muslims have had enough, they publicly ask for peace, it is only then Latif and Mangal Rao agree on a truce, on the condition that no Muslim male, female or child will file a FIR (First Information Report) in any police station, to which Latif agrees. Latif then warns everyone in the Muslim community not to complain against anyone. Period. It is then Farhaan finds out that he has been treated as a pawn by Latif, and decides to trust Dev and become an informer. But will Dev trust a man who just attempted to kill him? And will Latif and Mangal Rao join forces to eliminate Farhaan, who now has become a liability to both sides. 

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Two white cops, Bob "Uncle Bob" Hodges, a respected 19-year LAPD officer and Vietnam veteran, and rookie officer Danny McGavin have just been teamed together in the C.R.A.S.H. unit that patrols Northwest L.A., East L.A. and South Central L.A. The older cop is appreciated on the local streets. He is diplomatic on the surface, preaching "rapport" to gang members to encourage them to offer help when it is truly needed. Uncle Bob recognizes that every action cops take is scrutinized by the people they are trying to help. Hodges explains his view on policing to his young partner with a joke about bulls and cows. Although the pair bond quickly, life lessons are seemingly lost on the aggressive, cavalier McGavin, whose stunts soon bring him notoriety among the gang members and the people, such as attacking a graffiti artist by spraying his eyes with the paint can. McGavin wrecks their first unmarked car during a pursuit. Its replacement is vivid yellow, resulting in McGavin being nicknamed "Pac-Man" by officers and gang members alike. McGavin has a short lived romance with a waitress named Louisa who, like the offended Hodges, feels the weight of the Pac-Man persona. Amidst the strain of these relationships, the murder of a Bloods gang member escalates tension between two other street gangs. A series of seemingly random incidents culminates with the two partners in the middle of the Crips, Bloods and Hispanic barrio war. The 21st Street Gang, led by a criminal named Frog, attempts to negotiate a peace similar to Hodges and steer clear of the melee. To protect his partner, Hodges unwittingly exposes Frog as his source on the Crips leader Rocket's scheme to kill McGavin. Each group attempts to right the wrongs against their respective crews as police strive to prevent the hit and stand their authority over the fall out. In the end, the unit moves in on the would-be last crew standing—the 21st Street Gang. While arresting Frog, Hodges is fatally wounded by a gunman trying to do the hit on McGavin. With medics en route, McGavin comforts Hodges and breaks down with regret as the elder partner falls into delirium and dies. Sometime later, a more reserved McGavin has a rookie partner, a black cop who grew up in the neighborhood where they patrol and sports an attitude like the "Pac-Man". McGavin tells him the same joke about the bulls that Hodges taught him, and the younger officer reciprocates in the same way as the young McGavin. The film ends with McGavin considering the cycle as the pair drive on and continue their patrol. 

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In Raiden III, the Crystals have begun another invasion of Earth. VCD deploys a new model of the Fighting Thunder, the ME-02, to stop the Crystals and save the Earth. The game's ending sequence shows the player's Fighting Thunder craft landing on the wreck of another Fighting Thunder craft, transforming into a Fairy. 

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The story, which is told by a narrator who identifies himself as Horn (the ostensible author of The Book of the Long Sun), is an account of a search "on three worlds" for Silk, the hero of the Long Sun cycle. However, the narrator's adventures continue as he writes, so that the manuscript is both a memoir of his past and a journal of his present. As the story progresses, the narrator's identity becomes increasingly complex and elusive. The writing style changes with each book, and the story is highly nonlinear, with narrative threads from different times told in parallel and story events related out of order as the narrator remembers or confronts them. As with many of Wolfe's novels, the narrator and the circumstances under which the book is being written are essential to understanding the story. 

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As she clears out her old bedroom, Polly discovers that below her memories, in which she led an entirely normal and unremarkable life, there is a second set of memories, which are rather unusual. As Polly thinks back to this "second set" of memories, the point where they seem to diverge is when she stumbled into a funeral in an old mansion, Hunsdon House, when she was ten and playing with her best friend, Nina. There, she was approached by a man named Thomas Lynn who took her back outside and kept her company. He takes her back inside to help him select six pictures from a large pile, his share of the estate of the deceased; one of them is a photograph called "Fire and Hemlock" (hence the name of the novel), which he gave to her. He then takes her back to her grandmother's house, where she is living. Over the following years Tom and Polly continue a friendship largely through correspondence, with occasional visits. Tom sends her books and letters with stories in them, many of which tie into the general theme of his predicament. Together, the two come up with stories about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant Hero, who are Mr. Lynn's and Polly's alter egos, respectively. These stories all eventually come true, after a fashion. For instance, after discussing Tan Coul's horse, they encounter an identical horse disrupting traffic in the streets of London, having escaped from a nearby circus. An invented town and hardware store later turn out to be real, the proprietor being the spitting image of Tom, and his nephew Leslie falling into the story much later as a possible victim of Laurel's. Tom and Polly's story features three other heroes; later on, Tom gives Polly a photograph of all the members of his orchestra, and asks her to identify them. She immediately finds the other three heroes. These three are exactly the ones with whom Tom was considering setting up an independent string quartet. All the while, Polly encounters members of Tom's ex-wife's family, all of whom seem to be threatening her and trying to break off her relationship with Tom. These include Seb, who is a few years older than Polly. Polly understands the threats as Laurel (Tom's ex-wife) having some sort of power over him. Tom refuses to talk about it. This friendship develops against the background of Polly's growing up in her own disintegrating family life: her father Reg leaves, and a new lodger moves in and begins a relationship with her mother, Ivy. When Ivy sends her to live with her father in Bristol, it soon becomes apparent that she was not wanted there, her father having neither told his girlfriend that she was coming nor that she was supposed to live with them permanently. Eventually Polly moves in with her grandmother, who acts as a strong, fierce, strict anchor in her life. As Polly turns sixteen, she realises that she has always loved Tom, but when she is rejected by him (in part because of their age difference, but also for her own safety, as she later discovers) she sets out to discover the secret of his relationship with the sinister Laurel that is somehow connected to all the supernatural events that happen to Tom and her. To do this, she performs voodoo-like ceremony, and it partly succeeds – she is summoned to Hunsdon House, where it all started. Laurel is there, but humiliates Polly and tells her (untruthfully) that Tom is dying of cancer, and wants to be left alone by her. Mortified, Polly agrees to forget him, and leaves. Her second set of memories ends here. Three years later, sitting in front of the picture (that she now realizes was a gift from Tom) Polly decides to start investigating, and finds out that all memory of Tom has been erased from her life, and that he has been eradicated from the memories of anyone who should have known him. As well as this, other people that she met in connection with Tom have no idea who she is, her friend Nina believes that Polly stopped talking to her years ago, and friends that she met through Tom have apparently never met her. She becomes frustrated, and is determined to find Tom, the man she knew and still loves. In this she is aided by reading two ballads, Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, which help her figure out the truth. In reality, Tom has entered into a deal with the so-called Queen of the Fairies – Laurel. The time has now come when he must give his life to prolong that of her husband, the sinister Morton Leroy, the King of the Fairies. Using the information in the ballads as an instruction, she arrives at the ceremony over which Laurel is presiding, and manages to outwit her and secure Tom's life, and, depending on the way you interpret the strange happenings of the ending, his love. 

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Harlan B. Hollis struggles to stay alive when a jealous public relations manager hires a team of assassins to kill him. The manager, also Hollis' brother-in-law, resents Hollis for making the movie Gone in 60 Seconds, which is premiering at the Cinerama Dome. The film starts with the head hitman Frank Spyros answering a pay phone and getting instructions from a then unknown person to go ahead with a hit on Hollis as he drives to the James Dean Festival in Cholame, California. The same unknown person plays a video highlighting Hollis's life. He ejects the video and crumples up a publicity shot of Hollis. Later, Hollis is shown a picture found in the burned wreckage of one of the air covers' planes. Hollis identifies it as an unreleased publicity shot, indicating someone from inside of his own company is trying to kill him. With the aid of the Goodyear Blimp, he travels to the Cinerama Dome, where the premiere is being held. He discovers the mystery man to be Fox, who subsequently slips off the edge of the theater roof. Clark's crew find the bomb in the limo, throw it into a parking lot, and it explodes, blowing up several cars in the process. At the end of the film, Hollis gives his daughter Kelly a new 1982 Pontiac Trans Am for her birthday 

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Set in the 23rd century, Bujingai begins 100 years after an accident involving an environmentally-friendly energy source annihilated 70 percent of the world's population and all of its government. Those who survived found themselves with special abilities harnessed through the energies of the Earth itself, which they honed into a discipline of magic and swordplay. A mysterious and powerful human exile, Lau Wong, returns to the planet to battle his former friend and training partner Rei Jenron, who has been possessed by an evil spirit. Rei has kidnapped the soul of his once-beloved Yohfa and opened numerous portals, allowing demons to overtake the Asian city of Bujingai. Lau stands as the only one capable of stopping Rei and the demons threatening the world's remaining population. 

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In the distant past, the Guardian of the Milky Way galaxy named Lanancuras began to harbor a desire for more power. Because of his connection to the galaxy, he was able to absorb parts of planets and add them to his strength. As a result, he began invading the worlds he was assigned to protect. In the wake of his destruction, a following of creatures from across the galaxy pledged allegiance to Lanancuras and became known as the Kadrians. Taking notice of his ever-growing power and followers, the other Celestial Guardians confronted him; however, he had become too powerful, and they were defeated. Unable to subdue Lanancuras, the Celestial Guardians each gave up a part of their power and combined it into a single new Guardian, Mushra. In a final desperate attempt, they used Mushra's core by transforming it into a powerful card with which to seal Lanancuras in a prison. The prison was created from the remains of planets that had suffered under Lanancuras' tyranny. Because planets are themselves large beings, their combined strength- along with the power of the card- was able to restrain him. Thus Lanancuras was successfully sealed in a large meteorite. The meteorite was sent off into the galaxy to be sealed forever. Meanwhile, the way Lanancuras had increased his strength had consequences on the planets of the Milky Way. On Earth, it was in the shape of a virus that merged with human DNA and destroyed the humans that way. In order to eliminate the virus, scientists worked on combining human DNA with the DNA of animals and other creatures immune to the effects. They succeeded and created a sentient race known as Enterrans (a race of engineered Earthlings) which are based on humans, insects, reptiles, birds, sea creatures, wild beasts, and phantom beasts. Eventually, a cure was found and the human race survived. This all took place around the 22nd century. Thanks to Lanancuras' influence, the Enterrans fought their human creators as well as the humans robotic creations, driving the human race to a near extinction state. Luckily, a scientist named Dr. Daigo Tatsuro placed his 4-year-old daughter Yakumo in a sleep chamber in hopes that she would save the human race and find the human sanctuary Shinzo and bring peace back to Earth which was then renamed to Enterra. When the meteor that Lanancuras was imprisoned in struck Earth during the earlier parts of the Human-Enterran War, it's fragment had struck an infant Yakumo giving her abilities that she would later discover. 

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Two eight-year-old Little League teammates, Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey, both experience life- altering events during the summer of 1981 in Hutchinson, Kansas. Neil, the son of an irresponsible single mother and already discovering his own homosexuality, is sexually abused by the Little League coach, who leaves town after that summer. Brian, whose parents are often neglectful or busy working, only remembers that it started to rain during a game. The next thing he remembers is being in the crawl space of a house with a bloody nose, having no memory of the intervening five hours. Neil views the coach's abuse as love and becomes attracted to "bearish" middle-aged men. He begins prostituting himself at the age of 15, and continues doing so three years later when he moves to New York City, where his best friend, Wendy Peterson, now lives. In New York, Neil has an emotional encounter with a client, Zeke, who is dying from AIDS and (instead of sex) only wants to feel another person's touch. Afterwards, Neil begins withdrawing from prostitution and takes a job at a sandwich shop with assistance and encouragement from Wendy. Brian suffers from chronic nosebleeds, blackouts, and bedwetting for years after entering the crawl space. He also has recurring dreams about being touched by a strange, bluish hand, which eventually lead Brian to suspect that he may have been abducted by aliens. Another boy wearing the same Little League uniform begins to appear in these dreams later on. At 18, Brian meets a woman named Avalyn Friesen who also believes that she was abducted by aliens. They start to form a friendship, but when she makes advances towards him, he panics and refuses to speak to her again. Brian sees a photo of his Little League team as he tries to untangle his confused memories, recognizing a young Neil as the other boy from his dreams. Meanwhile, after a john brutally rapes and beats him, Neil returns to Hutchinson to spend Christmas with his mother. There, Neil and Brian meet for the first time in over a decade. After breaking into the house that was previously rented by the Little League coach, Neil tells Brian what happened that night: the coach offered to drive Brian home with Neil after a baseball game was rained out, as Brian did not have a ride. Instead, they all went to the coach's house, where the coach performed sex acts on the boys and made them perform sex acts on each other. At one point, Brian collapsed face- first onto the floor, giving him a bloody nose, while a nearby porch light caused the atmosphere to have an eerie blue color. Having finally learned the truth, Brian breaks down crying and is comforted by Neil as Christmas carolers sing “Silent Night". 

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A nameless boy, who was abandoned at a very young age, faces taunts from the other children in his village. He asks the priest what his name is, to which the priest answers Ram Jaane (God knows), which the boy accepts as his name. Ram Jaane and his friend Murli are caught stealing from a train by a corrupt police officer, Inspector Chewte (Puneet Issar). Chewte beats Ram Jaane in jail, but he is released without charge. Years later, Ram Jaane (Shah Rukh Khan) is working under Sameer Sanvla (Tinnu Anand) – Sanvla is murdered by Chewte and when Ram Jaane attempts to kill Chewie, he is again put in jail and brutally assaulted. When released from prison, Ram Jaane is taken by Murli (Vivek Mushran) to "Apna Ghar", a home set up for the homeless – Murli believes that this is the best way to reform him, it is here where Ram Jaane is reunited with his childhood friend Bela (Juhi Chawla), whom he is in love with. However, even in Apna Ghar, Ram Jaane still remains a criminal and even manages to influence the children in the house to follow in his footsteps. Apna Ghar is soon targeted by Baweja (G.P. Singh), who encourages his gang to attack Apna Ghar and all its residents, which Ram Jaane is able to stop. Ram Jaane is then seen shooting Baweja in the head. Chewte learns of Baweja's death and is determined to have his murderer put in prison – he approaches Apna Ghar and starts beating one of the children, which leads to Murli and the others attacking Chewte and his fellow officers. In the riot, one child gets killed. Murli blames Ram Jaane for this tragedy and Ram Jaane runs away, he attempts to make Bela run away with him (as he believes she loves him), but she refuses. Bela is, in fact, in love with Murli – Murli realized this all along and reciprocated her feelings, but did not show it as he realized that Ram Jaane also loved her. Murli begs Bela to attempt to reform Ram Jaane. However, whilst trying to reform him, Bela begins to dislike him for his criminal ways. Bhau (Gulshan Grover), Ram Jaane's rival and Technicolour (Pankaj Kapur), Ram Jaane's former partner in crime hatch a plot to kill Ram Jaane – when he hears of their plan, he kills them both and then rushes to Apna Ghar to stop their henchmen from killing anyone. Eventually, Chewte arrives but is shot by Ram Jaane. Ram Jaane is taken to court where he confesses to all of his sins – the court decides that he must be sentenced to death. The boys of Apna Ghar are in awe of Ram Jaane, as he plans to "die with a smile." The boys think this is courageous and plan to follow in his criminal footsteps. Murli pleads with Ram Jaane not to die bravely, so the boys won't want to follow his path, but Ram Jaane refuses. On the day of his death, with Murli and the boys watching, Ram Jaane feigns fear, crying and pleading for his life. One by one, the boys remove their red headbands, the symbol of being members of Ram Jaane's gang. After his death, Bela and Murli read a letter from Ram Jaane to Bela, which states that he feels guilty for everything he had done and that he had planned intentionally for Bela to leave him and to go back to Murli. 

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The Three Treasures retells the story of the Yamato Takeru legend, and features a recounting of the great battle between Susanoo and the legendary dragon Orochi, when his aunt presents him with the sword found within. 

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Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptor who lives in New York with her son Oliver (Joseph Gordon- Levitt); she works a day job as a data entry clerk. Annie is selected to be a juror in the trial of mob boss Louie Boffano (Tony Lo Bianco), who is accused of ordering the murder of Salvatore Riggio. Mark Cordell (Alec Baldwin) buys some of Annie's artwork and then wines and dines her before she discovers he is better known as "The Teacher", Boffano's enforcer and the actual perpetrator of Riggio's murder. Mark tells Annie to persuade the jury to acquit Boffano, or she and Oliver will die. A frightened Annie convinces the jury to acquit Boffano. After the trial, Boffano questions whether Annie should "disappear", seeing her as a loose end. Mark convinces Boffano otherwise. Mark goes after Annie's friend Juliet (Anne Heche). After having sex with her, Mark reveals himself to be Annie's stalker. He pulls a gun and forces Juliet to take a fatal drug overdose. Mark boasts of Juliet's murder to Eddie (James Gandolfini), who also works for Boffano but unlike Mark, is sympathetic to Annie as he is a parent himself. To ensure her son's safety, Annie hides Oliver in the village of T'ui Cuch, Guatemala. The prosecutor, who figured out Annie was threatened, wants Annie to turn state's witness so they can go after Mark, who now plans to take over Boffano's empire. Annie convinces the prosecutor to let her wear a wire in a scheduled meeting with Mark. Annie removes the wire and gives it to Eddie, insinuating she and Mark are now a couple. Annie then succeeds in getting Mark to incriminate himself in a boastful rant about his ambitions, which she tapes on a hidden tape recorder. She uses the tape to tip off Boffano, who schedules a meeting with Mark. Boffano's plan backfires when Mark kills both Boffano and his son Joseph (Michael Rispoli), along with their henchmen. He also slashes Eddie's throat. Mark, furious at Annie's betrayal, calls her, revealing his intention to travel to Guatemala to kill Oliver. Annie travels to Guatemala where there is a showdown with Mark. He chases Oliver into a structure, where locals shoot Mark. Annie, also armed with a pistol, fires six more shots, making sure Mark is dead after he tries to shoot Annie with a gun pulled from his ankle holster. Oliver is unharmed. 

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The movie opens in 1909 (though Pat Garrett was killed in 1908), near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Garrett is riding with men working for the Santa Fe Ring, when he is ambushed and coldly killed by his associates, including one John W. Poe. In 1881 in Old Fort Sumner, New Mexico, William H. Bonney, known as Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), is passing the time with friends shooting chickens for fun. An old friend of Billy's, Pat Garrett (James Coburn), rides into town with Deputy Sheriff J. W. Bell (Matt Clark) and joins the diversion. Later, over drinks, Garrett informs Billy that the electorate want him out of the country, and that in five days, when he becomes Sheriff of Lincoln County, he will make Billy leave. Six days later, Garrett and his deputies surround the small farmhouse where Billy and his gang are holed up. In the ensuing gun battle, Charlie Bowdre (Charles Martin Smith) and several other men on both sides are killed, and Billy is taken prisoner. As Billy awaits his execution in the Lincoln County Jail for the killing of Buckshot Roberts, he is taunted and beaten by self-righteous Deputy Sheriff Bob Olinger (R. G. Armstrong) while the hangman's gallows are being built nearby. Garrett warns Olinger not to taunt Billy again or he will be fired and sent back to Texas; then, Garrett leaves town to collect taxes leaving his two deputies to guard Billy. Olinger again argues with Billy but after J. W. Bell intervenes, Olinger leaves to get a drink. Billy finds a gun hidden for him in the outhouse and shoots Bell in the back. He then retrieves Olinger's shotgun loaded with "sixteen thin dimes" and shoots Olinger dead in the street, saying, "Keep the change, Bob." Billy leaves town. After Garrett returns to Lincoln and recruits a new deputy sheriff named Alamosa Bill Kermit (Jack Elam), he rides to Santa Fe to meet with Governor Lew Wallace (Jason Robards), who introduces him to a pair of powerful men from the Santa Fe Ring. They offer a thousand dollars for the capture of Billy the Kid, with five hundred dollars upfront. Garrett rejects the money saying they can pay him in full when Billy is brought in and warns them that he will be successful as long as another cattle war is not started. Meanwhile, Billy returns to his gang at Old Fort Sumner, where he decides to lie back for a few days. He is confronted by three strangers looking to kill him; all three are killed in the subsequent shootout, helped by another stranger called Alias (Bob Dylan), who kills one of the men with a knife through the neck. Alias had witnessed Billy's escape from the Lincoln County Jail. Garrett meets up with Sheriff Colin Baker (Slim Pickens), hoping he can provide information on Billy's whereabouts. Baker and his wife (Katy Jurado) go with Garrett to arrest some of Billy's old gang. In a gunfight, the gang members including Black Harris (L. Q. Jones) are killed and Baker is mortally wounded. Baker's wife comforts the dying lawman as he waits to die by a river. Later that evening, Garrett watches a barge floating down a river with a man shooting bottles in the water. Garrett and the two face off briefly from a distance before lowering their rifles. Garrett is joined by a glory-seeking John W. Poe (John Beck), who works for the Santa Fe Ring. The two ride southwest to meet John Chisum (Barry Sullivan), a powerful cattle baron, who informs them that Billy has been rustling his cattle again and killed some of his men; Billy once worked for him and claimed that Chisum owes him $500 of back salary. Anticipating Garrett's arrival in Old Fort Sumner, Billy's friend Paco (Emilio Fernández) and his family leave for Mexico, soon followed by Billy. Along the way, Billy stops at the Horrell Trading Post, which is owned by an old friend. By chance, Horrell (Gene Evans) is hosting Garrett's new deputy, Alamosa Bill. After they finish eating, Billy and Alamosa step outside for a duel at ten paces, with Billy shooting Alamosa dead. Meanwhile, Garrett and Poe arrive at a saloon. Garrett tells Poe to ride on without him and that Garrett will pick him up in Roswell in five or six days. Three members of Billy's gang come into the saloon. After taunting Holly (Richard Bright) and getting him drunk, Garrett shoots him dead after he pulls a knife. He tells Alias to give Billy a message that they had "a little drink together". Garrett rides to Roswell ahead of Poe to gather more clues on Billy's whereabouts. Garrett beats up a prostitute named Ruthie Lee (Rutanya Alda) and learns from her that Billy is in Fort Sumner. Poe arrives in Roswell to find Garrett naked and in bed with several prostitutes, and confirms that Billy is in Fort Sumner. Garrett recruits an old friend he helped become a sheriff and along with Poe rides to Fort Sumner to find Billy. Later that night Billy and his girlfriend, the daughter of Pete Maxwell, have sex as Garrett and his two deputies arrive. Billy goes to get some meat and, after seeing Garrett's deputies (who are both afraid to shoot the Kid), backs into a bedroom where Garrett shoots him. Garrett angrily hits Poe for attempting to cut off Billy's trigger finger. He stays on the porch until morning, when the townspeople of Fort Sumner, having heard the news of his death, gather to see Billy's lifeless body. Garrett mounts his horse and rides out of town, with a small boy throwing stones at him. 

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The Republican Party of Springfield decide to make caring for the environment a felony offense; the resulting pollution causes an acid rainfall, destroying the Simpsons' TV antenna and prompting them to stay inside and play a game of Monopoly to pass the time. When it is revealed that Bart has been cheating by using Lego bricks as hotel pieces, Bart threatens Lisa and Homer assaults him. Marge and Lisa try to pry them apart. Despite her inability to talk, Maggie calls the police on her family before taking hold of Marge and attempting to pull her off Homer. With help from an edible taffy-like substance and a robot, the entire Simpson family is arrested for causing a domestic disturbance. After a short time in jail, they are released by a social worker named Gabriel, whom Homer mistakes for an angel sent from Heaven. Gabriel moves in with the family to help them be functional again. After observing the family's quirks, Gabriel takes the family to a forest and diagnoses the family's problems accordingly: Marge tries to prove her self-worth to the family by medicating them with food, Bart is addicted to doing crazy stunts for attention, and Homer is simply a drunken buffoon. Gabriel then sets up a challenge to teach the Simpsons the importance of teamwork by setting up a picnic basket in a tree. The object is for the family to work together as a team to get it down. After a harrowing rescue involving Bart driving the family car and Homer nearly becoming prey for wild predators, the Simpsons succeed and Gabriel congratulates them on working together as a family and becoming functional during their drive home. Before the family can call it a day, they arrive home and find Amber and Ginger waiting in their driveway, causing Gabriel to storm off in disgust. Amber shows Marge and the kids video footage of a drunk Homer marrying her in Vegas, while Ginger is next door with the widowed Ned Flanders. Homer tries to get his marriage to Amber annulled by the court, but Judge Constance Harm refuses, stating that Homer married Amber in Nevada and the marriage still stands, since Homer never officially divorced Amber. Marge is so angry that she banishes Homer, who takes up residence in Bart's treehouse with Amber, who attempts to seduce him by making him sandwiches, arousing Marge's jealousy. Amber also unsuccessfully tries to bond with Bart and Lisa, who resent her for destroying their family. Homer still loves Marge and refuses to sleep with Amber, so he tries to sleep in Santa's Little Helper's kennel, but ends up getting its doorway stuck to his head and spends the rest of the night trying to get it off, as Marge watches from the window and begins to have a change of heart. The next day, Marge finds Homer asleep amid the broken remains of the doghouse, and asks him to come inside to talk with her, although she is still angry at him over what he did. While Amber is lounging in a kiddie pool, she overhears Homer and Marge arguing about her, with Homer ultimately announcing that he is leaving Marge and the kids. Homer then invites Amber to Moe's for a night of drinking, while Marge and the kids eavesdrop from outside. The next day, a hungover Amber discovers that she is now married to Grampa Simpson, and the Simpsons have video evidence of the event about her vowing to forsake all other husbands when married to Grampa. Amber and Ginger, who is fed up with Ned, hurriedly drive back to Vegas. The family celebrates their victory through sticking together, while Grampa, at first despondent over Amber leaving him, quickly learns to be content with it. 

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Written as a dark, comic fable, the story concerns an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he has previously drifted amiably through is in fact Hell – literally so to Harry. His wife is unfaithful, while his son is selling drugs, and his daughter is a communist selling herself to buy them. In one of the novel's more shocking scenes, glimpsed through a window, incest occurs. Redemption comes in the form of Honey Barbara – a pantheist, healer and prostitute. In the words of the book's blurb "Honey is to Harry as Isis is to Osiris. Together they conquer Hell and retire to the forest where their children inherit the legend of paradise regained." But Harry must die for a second time to be truly saved. 

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Two Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agents are killed while trying to intercept a briefcase exchange taking place in a United Nations parking garage. The murders are caught on a security camera, but the criminal escapes with top secret information. Months later, tow truck driver Mark Warren is arrested for an illegal weapons possession charge following a vehicular collision in Chicago. Through a fingerprint check, the police determine that he is actually federal fugitive Mark Roberts, wanted for a homicide. That night, Roberts boards a prisoner transport aircraft back to New York, sharing the flight with Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, who is escorting prisoners unrelated to Roberts' case. Roberts thwarts an assassination attempt by a Chinese prisoner with an improvised firearm, but the bullet blows a window that depressurizes the cabin, killing the prisoner and another marshal. The pilots attempt an emergency landing but the damaged plane crashes in a river in Southern Indiana. With the plane sinking, Gerard assists in rescuing fellow marshals and officers while they retrieve the surviving prisoners, but discovers Roberts has escaped. Eight hours later, DSS Special Agent John Royce is assigned to join Gerard's team and other officers to hunt Roberts, much to Gerard's reluctance to his potential in assistance. Roberts flees to New York City, after escaping a near death encounter with law enforcement, with Gerard and his team cornering him in a swampland in Kentucky. Arriving in New York days later, he secures money, weapons and fake identification from a former fellow US Marine of Force Recon. Roberts begins conducting surveillance on a Chinese diplomat named Xiang Chen. In Chicago, Gerard and the Marshals pursue several leads, including Roberts' girlfriend Marie Bineaux as well as the airplane mechanic who hid the zip gun, whom the Marshals find murdered by Chen. Gerard and his colleagues manage to access surveillance footage of the murders in the parking garage and realize that Roberts acted in self-defense and was wearing gloves; thus he wouldn't have been identified by fingerprints at the scene as was earlier claimed. Confronted with the evidence, DSS Director Bertram Lamb admits to Gerard and his senior supervisor that Mark Roberts is in fact Mark Sheridan, a former CIA Special Activities Division operative and a former Force Recon Marine, that seemingly went rogue during an investigation to uncover a mole within the U.S. State Department that had been selling covert secrets to China. Chen was the contact delivering the money to Sheridan for the information and when DSS agents tried to apprehend him, Sheridan killed them in self-defense and fled the scene. Eventually, Gerard and his team catch up with Sheridan in Queens Hill Cemetery where he meets with, and threatens to expose, DSS Special Agent Frank Barrows as one of the conspirators who framed him. Chen tries to assassinate Sheridan as he leaves the cemetery, but inadvertently kills Barrows instead. Sheridan flees to a retirement home followed by Gerard, Royce and Deputy Marshal Noah Newman. Meanwhile, Chen is caught and detained by Deputy Marshals Savannah Cooper and Bob Biggs. At the senior care facility, Newman overhears a physical struggle and walks into a room where he witnesses Royce holding Sheridan at gunpoint. Royce suddenly shoots Newman with his gun and later lies to his associates, claiming Sheridan shot Newman. Sheridan escapes by swinging from the building onto the roof of a passing train. Newman dies of his gunshot wounds en route to the hospital. After retrieving fingerprints from an abandoned vehicle at a marine loading dock, Gerard tracks down Sheridan on a freighter ship bound for Canada. During a scuffle between Sheridan and Gerard aboard the vessel, Royce shoots Sheridan, injuring him. Sheridan is later taken into custody. Gerard begins to suspect Royce may be the mole when he notices the firearm that shot Newman had its serial number filed off (in an attempt to hide it), was actually Royce's own gun earlier. Left alone to guard Sheridan's hospital room, Royce wakes Sheridan up to murder him, but Gerard steps in, confronts and kills Royce first. After leaving the hospital, Sheridan's charges are dropped as he is exonerated and released. Gerard and his team depart to honor Newman's legacy. 

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The young narrator, not content with the confines of the ordinary alphabet, reports on additional letters beyond Z, with a fantastic creature corresponding to each new letter. For example, the letter "FLOOB" is the first letter in Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs, which have large buoyant heads and float serenely in the water. In order, the letters, followed by the creatures for which the letters are the first letter when spelling their names, are YUZZ (Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz), WUM (Wumbus), UM (Umbus), HUMPF (Humpf- Humpf-a-Dumpfer), FUDDLE (Miss Fuddle-dee-Duddle), GLIKK (Glikker), NUH (Nutches), SNEE (Sneedle), QUAN (Quandary), THNAD (Thnadners), SPAZZ (Spazzim), FLOOB (Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs), ZATZ (Zatz-it), JOGG (Jogg- oons), FLUNN (Flunnel), ITCH (Itch-a-pods), YEKK (Yekko), VROO (Vrooms), and HI! (High Gargel-orum). The book ends with an unnamed letter that is substantially more complicated than those with names. A list of all the additional letters is shown at the end. 

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Joe Norson (Granger) lives with his wife and her parents in New York City; he has lost his gas station and found work as a part-time mail carrier. Because he wants the best for his expectant wife Ellen (O'Donnell), Joe rationalizes stealing what he thinks is $200 from a lawyer's office on his route. He discovers that he's actually stolen $30,000 from Victor Backett (Edmon Ryan), a corrupt attorney. Backett has framed wealthy broker/patsy Emil Lorrison (Paul Harvey) in a sex scandal, then extorted the money from him with the help of Lucille "Lucky" Colner (Adele Jergens) and ex-con and accomplice Georgie Garsell (James Craig). From the start, Joe begins to panic. He explains his newfound wealth to Ellen as a lucrative out-of-town job, then disguises the money as a package and leaves it with bartender Nick Drumman (Ed Max). In the meantime Lucille's body is found in the East River, strangled, and Captain Walter Anderson (Paul Kelly) of the New York Police Department investigates the murder. Both Lorrison and Backett are interviewed, their names having been found in Lucille's "love diary." After the birth of his child, Joe decides to try to return his ill-gotten gain, but Backett suspects a trap and refuses the offer. Backett instead sends Garsell and a taxi driver to grab Joe and recover the cash. Joe is able to escape after they discover that Drumman has substituted a nightgown in the package and gone into hiding with the money. Joe looks for Drumman, but Garsell finds the bartender first, strangles him, and recovers the money. Joe confesses the original theft to Ellen, who urges him to turn himself in, but he finds himself a suspect in Drumman's murder. He tries to track down the source of the money to clear himself, even as Captain Anderson methodically pursues both men as suspects: Garsell for Lucille and Joe for Drumman. Joe locates Garsell's girlfriend, singer Harriet Sinton (Jean Hagen), but she betrays him to Garsell. Garsell plans to murder Joe and strangles Harriet to eliminate her as a witness. Captain Anderson is hot on their heels and a chase ensues through the early morning streets of New York. Garsell kills his partner and forces Joe to drive, but Joe deliberately crashes the taxi to end the nightmare. When Garsell tries to run out of the car, he is shot by the police and killed. Joe is carried out of the car by the police and taken into the ambulance. Ellen arrives just before he leaves for the hospital, and they embrace. Joe survives the accident; the police are able to learn the truth, so he is cleared. 

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Will Lockhart delivers supplies from Laramie to Coronado, an isolated western town. He immediately ends up tangling with the Waggomans, influential owners of the massive Barb Ranch. Lockhart is quietly searching for information about someone who sold repeating rifles to the Apaches; his brother, a green Army lieutenant, was one of many soldiers killed in an Apache attack on a far reach of the Barb Ranch. Patriarch Alec Waggoman is haunted by dreams of a stranger who intends to kill his adult son, Dave. He is also gradually losing his eyesight and cannot count on the immature and vicious Dave. Lockhart is told by Barbara Waggoman, Alec's niece, that he can collect salt for free and haul it away for freight but Dave Waggoman accuses him of stealing, shoots six of Lockhart's mules and burns his three wagons. Lockhart returns to town, engaging first Dave and then ranch foreman Vic Hansbro in a fistfight. Alec shows up and offers Lockhart restitution for his lost property. Sheriff Tom Quigby suggests that Lockhart then leave town to avoid trouble. Lockhart continues searching for the gun runner. Local drunk Chris Boldt tells him that he may know something, but is killed soon after being seen with Lockhart, leading Sheriff Quigby to briefly arrest Lockhart. Vic considers himself a second son to Alec and is engaged to marry Barbara. Alec depends on and respects Vic, but holds him responsible for the damage Dave caused to Lockhart's property and threatens to take it out of Vic's pay. Dave starts a gunfight and is shot in the hand by Lockhart. Lockhart is overpowered, and Dave shoots him through the hand with Lockhart's own gun. Afterwards, Vic rides after Dave and catches him trying to contact the Apaches to deliver 200 repeating rifles for which the Apaches have paid Vic and Dave in advance. Vic is forced to shoot and kill Dave in self-defense, and then lets Alec believe that Lockhart was responsible. Lockhart takes refuge with a rival rancher, Kate Canady, who wishes she and Waggoman, her long-ago fiancé before he married Dave's future mother, could declare a truce. Alec goes over some old bills and finds a bill for wire fence that is very overpriced. He suspects that it conceals a rifle purchase and sets out to discover for himself if Dave was both stealing from him and selling rifles to the Apaches. Vic is unable to talk him out of it, so just before they reach the wagon, the two scuffle and Alec is accidentally pushed off his horse and down a hill. Assuming the old man is dead, Vic rides away. Lockhart finds Alec alive and takes him to Kate to tend to his wounds. When he regains consciousness, Alec is able to tell Lockhart about Dave and Vic and the rifles. Lockhart finds Vic using a smoke signal to call for the Apaches to come for their rifles. Lockhart forces Vic to help him push the wagon off the hilltop and destroy the rifles, then finds he is unable to gun Vic down in cold blood. Vic rides away, but is intercepted and killed by the Apaches. Alec and Kate plan to get married. Barbara intends to leave Coronado and head back east. As Lockhart leaves town, he tells Barbara she will be passing through Laramie on the way and to ask anyone where to find Captain Lockhart, confirming that he is an officer in the U.S. Cavalry. 

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Scenario 1 features Synbios, a young lord from the Republic of Aspinia. Aspinia was once a part of the Empire of Destonia, but seceded after a war of independence spearheaded by some of the more democratic-minded nobles. They opposed Emperor Domaric's totalitarian policies, which disenfranchised a large number of people, creating a huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Tensions remained between Aspinia and Destonia after the secession, marked by occasional border disputes. As the game begins, Synbios is part of a military force representing Aspinia at a peace conference in the neutral city of Saraband. Due to manipulation by outside forces - later discovered to be connected with a religious cult known as the "Bulzome Sect" - full-scale war breaks out again between Aspinia and Destonia. The majority of the game's storyline covers this conflict as well as Synbios and his team's fight against the Bulzome sect. Throughout the game Synbios has periodic encounters with Medion, Destonia's youngest prince, who also recognizes the truth behind the war. Although on opposite sides of the war, the two work together to identify the real threat. Medion's role is portrayed in more detail in Scenario 2. Scenario 2 features Medion, Prince of Destonia, and youngest of three sons of Emperor Domaric. Although loyal to his father and his country, he senses that there are other forces at work beneath the tensions between Aspinia and Destonia. He attends the conference in Saraband on behalf of Destonia, along with his brothers Arrawnt and Mageron. As discovered in Scenario 1, much of this influence comes from the Bulzome sect, as well as collaborating separatist factions within both Destonia and Aspinia. Medion works parallel to Synbios of Aspinia, often disposing of rogue Aspinian elements to spare Synbios's force from fighting against its own countrymen. At the end of the game, Medion is forced to battle with Synbios' force when Julian steps in to stop them. Scenario 3 stars Julian, a mercenary who appears as a secondary character in both Scenario 1 and Scenario 2. He is for all intents and purposes the true main character of Shining Force III. His initial motivation as the story begins is to track down and kill Galm, one of, if not the, most powerful member of the Vandals, a powerful race of beings that existed over 1,000 years ago. Julian believes that Galm killed his father and is seeking revenge. This story arc is first introduced in an earlier Shining game, Shining the Holy Ark, in which Julian appears as a young boy who asks the party to search for his missing father. Julian joins Synbios in the midst of his quest in Scenario 1, but after an encounter with Galm, he is tossed over a waterfall at the suspension bridge and believed by Synbios' army to be dead. He reappears in Scenario 2, apparently washing ashore at the site of a battle between Medion's army and the Bulzome Sect. Knowing the sect's ties to the Vandals, Julian agrees to fight alongside Medion. As it becomes clear that the sect is trying to kill Gracia, a child intended to become the next Innovator (A Shining Series figure equatable to a god), Julian takes on the task of protecting him and helping him realize his destiny. Scenario 3 starts about 60% through scenario 2's story, and focuses primarily on battles against the Bulzome Sect and their allies in both Aspinia and Destonia. While scenarios 1 & 2 happen at roughly the same time, much of scenario 3 takes place after both, but there is some "overlap". Eventually Julian leads a three-party coalition consisting of the armies of both Synbios and Medion, to engage in the final conflict against Bulzome, a powerful Vandal long sealed in another dimension, and the true orchestrator of the conflict. 

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The plot revolves around private investigator, Nick Slaughter, an ex-DEA agent, who after arriving in the fictional resort town of Key Mariah, Florida, and setting up a detective agency there, meets up with local tourist agent, Sylvie Girard, to solve a variety of different cases. 

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Lisa, a homeless woman, asks the audience for some change. Songwriter Gordon Schwinn works at his piano to meet a deadline, irritated because he must write a song about spring for children's television host Mr. Bungee, who dresses as a frog ("Frogs Have So Much Spring (The Spring Song)"). Gordon takes a break from writing The Spring Song to meet his best friend Rhoda at a restaurant, where the waitress, who is a fan of Mr. Bungee, informs Gordon and Rhoda of the specials at the restaurant, including "Calamari". During lunch, he clutches his head and falls face first into his meal. Rhoda calls an ambulance ("911 Emergency") and Gordon is taken to the hospital. Gordon's greatest fear is dying with his greatest songs still inside him ("I Have so Many Songs"), to which he ponders about what makes a song (“Heart and Music”). Gordon's mother, Mimi, arrives and insists that ("Mother's Gonna Make Things Fine"). A neurosurgeon, Dr. Jafar Berensteiner, explains that there's "Trouble in His Brain" and that an MRI is necessary. Gordon snaps at Mimi for underestimating his condition and not listening to the Doctor, to which a hallucination of Mr. Bungee appears, telling Gordon to ("Be Polite To Everyone"), and Gordon tells it to leave. Gordon daydreams about his boyfriend Roger, who is on his way to the hospital from a "Sailing" trip. The nurses, sadistic Nancy D. and compassionate Richard, are introduced. Nancy D. requests a "Family History", prompting Gordon to ponder why he only inherited the bad traits from his parents ("Gordon's Law of Genetics"). He reflects on his father's abandonment ("And They're Off"). "Roger Arrives" and spends some time with Gordon, who tells him to "Just Go". Richard enters to give Gordon a sponge bath in preparation for his “MRI Tomorrow”. During the sponge bath, Richard complains that he is "Poor, Unsuccessful, and Fat". Gordon hallucinates and sees Mr. Bungee, who continually bullies him. Gordon is visited by a minister, who tries to impose his Protestant beliefs on Gordon, who is Jewish. Gordon asks him to leave, and goes to sleep. Gordon is woken by Nancy, who informs him that it’s “MRI Day”. To cope with his claustrophobia, he thinks about a past sailing trip with Roger ("Sitting Becalmed in the Lee of Cuttyhunk"). Dr. Berensteiner tells Gordon that he has an arteriovenous malformation, and needs a "Craniotomy". Nancy D. informs him of the risks - if he doesn't go through with the operation, he could die, however, if Dr. Berensteiner is not exact with his surgery, he could also die. Gordon, given the choice by the Doctor, decides to go through with the operation, and Roger offers to sleep with Gordon that night ("An Invitation to Sleep In My Arms"). Rhoda arrives with news that Mr. Bungee needs a new song by the next morning, so Gordon declines Roger's offer and decides to write instead. He then hallucinates about Lisa, who he encountered earlier on his way to lunch with Rhoda. Lisa implores the audience for "Change", both physical money and social change. Gordon presents his new song, "Yes", to Mr. Bungee, who hates it, storming off to leave Gordon dejected "In the Middle of the Room". Mimi cleans Gordon's apartment, and in a rage, throws out all of his books ("Throw It Out"). Gordon waits anxiously as his surgery is delayed ("In the Middle of the Room (Part 2)"). Then the operation commences. Roger, distraught about the surgery, encounters Lisa, who consoles him ("A Really Lousy Day in the Universe"). In a coma, Gordon hallucinates a surreal mini-opera featuring people from his life ("Brain Dead", "Whenever I Dream", "Eating Myself Up Alive", "The Music Still Plays On"), concluding with a friendly Mr. Bungee telling Gordon “Don’t Give In”, leading him back to consciousness. Dr. Berensteiner celebrates the successful surgery ("Craniotomy (Reprise)"). Gordon and Roger fool around in the hospital shower, much to Richard's dismay ("You Boys Are Gonna Get Me In Such Trouble"). Gordon expresses his new appreciation for life ("Sailing (Reprise)"). Months later, Gordon has recovered and is enjoying a new, more fulfilled life with Roger. They run into Lisa, who is selling Gordon's books that Mimi threw out. Gordon and Roger ask for them back, but she refuses ("The Homeless Lady's Revenge"). She flees, leaving Gordon furious, but Roger calms him down ("Time"). Gordon has apparently overcome his fear of dying with his greatest songs inside him ("Time and Music"). With his life at last in balance, he is able to write again and finishes the spring song ("I Feel so Much Spring"). 

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Kate Bosworth (Bette Davis) is a sincere, demure artist who misses her boat to an island off New England, where she intends to meet her twin sister Patricia (also Davis) and her cousin Freddie (Charlie Ruggles). She persuades Bill Emerson (Glenn Ford) to take her home in his boat. Later, their relationship grows while she paints a portrait of Eben Folger (Walter Brennan), the old lighthouse keeper, and Kate is very much in love. However, her sister Pat, a flamboyant, man-hungry manipulator, fools Bill when she first meets him pretending to be Kate. Pat then pursues him on a trip out of town, and when they return, they announce to Kate their intention to marry. A heartbroken Kate focuses on her work with a rude but very talented artist named Karnock (Dane Clark), but rejects his romantic overtures. Bill eventually goes to Chile, allowing Kate to spend some time with her sister, whom she hasn't seen since the marriage. When the two go sailing, a sudden storm washes Pat overboard and she drowns, her wedding ring coming off in Kate's hands while trying to save her. Kate passes out and is washed ashore in the boat. When she regains consciousness, she is mistaken for Pat. Bill is about to return, so Kate decides to assume her late sister's identity. To her surprise, she learns that Bill is angry at Pat for her many affairs and in no mood to continue the marriage. Cousin Freddie has guessed the truth and insists that Kate must reveal to Bill her real identity. When she does, Bill realizes that Kate is the one he truly loves. 

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Coming off the heels of the "Assault on Weapon Plus" storyline, Jean Grey, Beast, and Emma Frost leave the X-Mansion while Xorn forces the newest member of the "Special Class", Dust, to attack Professor X and destroy Cerebra. Confronting Xavier, Xorn imprisons Dust in a jar to keep her from helping the professor, and then removes his mask, to reveal that he is Magneto in disguise. Magneto, enjoying the lack of progress Xavier has made in improving mutantkind's lot since his "death" (partly due to his manipulations), has begun to teach his militant anti-human philosophy to the Special Class while indulging in the mutant-power enhancing drug Kick, supplied to him by his helper, Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos. He also reveals that he (Magneto) has been responsible for restoring Xavier's mobility via reprogramming the nanite Sentinels inserted into Xavier's body by Cassandra Nova and shuts them down and places the once more crippled Xavier in a glass tank, in a state of suspended animation. Magneto, surrounded by his followers and original Brotherhood member Toad, takes over New York City. Magneto lays waste to the city and engages in multiple acts of mass murder, killing thousands of humans trapped in the city. Magneto also reveals his grand scheme: reversing Earth's magnetic field and remake the planet as "Planet X" in which mutants, the possessors of the "X-gene", ruled over ordinary humans. Meanwhile, in space, Jean Grey and Wolverine are stranded on Asteroid M as Magneto has sent it hurling into the sun just as the two recognize the base. Wanting to end her suffering, Wolverine stabs Jean. Her seeming death allows her to be connect with the Phoenix Force, though in full control over her powers this time, and escape with Logan back to Earth. They rescue Beast and Emma Frost, whose jetcraft was destroyed by Magneto, stranding the two at sea on the wreckage of the ship. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Fantomex organize a resistance group with help from the remaining Stepford Cuckoos, and are joined by Beak, who rejects Magneto when the latter, in part due to his drug addiction and loss of sanity, starts killing humans by the hundreds. In the final showdown, Xavier is freed and the New X-Men unite to fight Magneto. As Magneto murders Esme, Cyclops tells the grieving Emma that he's decided upon which woman (Jean or Emma) he loves but is interrupted by Magneto's attack and responds in kind, destroying his helmet as Fantomex frees Xavier. Desperate for protection against Xavier's telepathy, Magneto grabs his "Xorn" mask and puts it on. Having realized that Xorn is Magneto or at least believes himself to be Magneto, the X-Men attempt to unbalance him by calling him Xorn as they attack, complete with them begging "Xorn" to tell them why "he" betrayed the X-Men. Magneto, whose sanity is slipping due to excessive "Kick" usage, begins to rant furiously that he is not Xorn, but Magneto as a crowd of Magneto's supporters gather alongside Xavier and Jean Grey. Jean orders Magneto to address his angry army, who are furious at Magneto for the way that he has failed to address the lack of food and water for his makeshift army of Manhattan mutants since taking over the island. Magneto (who removes the "Xorn" mask) tries to calm them down, but the crowd doesn't recognize him due to his optic blast damaged face. At that point Xavier explains that Magneto, with his murderous rampage, has lost all credibility with the masses. Xavier admits that in death, Magneto had finally gained legitimacy amongst humans and mutants alike as a true figure for change in society but that his return and the mass murders he committed had caused the world to label Magneto as a fraud. Xavier opines that the days of him and Magneto as the sole ideologies of mutantkind was over and that it was time for mutantkind to come up with their own opinions and theories of their place in the world. Magneto falls over and Jean Grey approaches him, only to be hit by a lethal electro-magnetic pulse. As Jean falls to the ground dying, Magneto (putting the Xorn helmet back on) defiantly cries out for someone to kill him; Magneto would rather be dead than judged by the mutant masses as a fraud. Wolverine, now berserk at the sight of Jean dying, uses his claws to decapitate Magneto. Dying, Jean is held tightly by Cyclops as the two reconcile. With her dying breath, Jean begs Cyclops to move on with his life and not waste his remaining days mourning her, as she tells Scott, "All I ever do is die on you..." The final pages of the issue cut to 150 years into the future, where a "Phoenix Egg" is found on the moon by an astronaut, offering a segue into the final arc of Morrison's X-Men run, the future based "Here Comes Tomorrow". 

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Dawn of Mana opens on the fictional island of Illusia, a place where the giant Mana Tree lies dormant. Much of the story takes place on Fa'Diel, a continent composed of the five nations of Jadd, Topple, Ishe, Wendell, and Lorimar. At the start of the game Ritzia, a Maiden in charge of tending to the Tree, and Keldric, her knight and the player-controlled character, have left their village to find Ritzia's missing pet. While they are out, Illusia is attacked by King Stroud of Lorimar. The pair rush to the Tree of Mana, thinking that Stroud intends to attack the legendary beast that lies sleeping underneath its roots. While searching for the beast, Keldric finds a seed of the Tree, which attaches to his arm and can transform into a slingshot, a whip, or a sword. They also find Faye, a spirit child, who can cast magic and joins them. When they reach the center of the labyrinth of roots, Stroud's men catch up to them; they had been searching for Ritzia, not the beast. Stroud intends to open a portal to Mavolia, a land of darkness sealed away for centuries, and believes Ritzia is part of the key as a Maiden had been a part of opening the portal before. Stroud leaves with Ritzia to find the rest of the key, and Keldric and Faye chase after them. Keldric and Faye, with the help of the great beast, Flammie, force the Lorimarian army to leave the village. They chase after Stroud, catching up to him at the coast. There they free Ritzia, only to be attacked by Stroud, wielding the other part of the key—the Sword of Mana. Keldric is thrown off of Stroud's airship, and the Lorimarians invade Illusia again. Stroud opens the portal, and a wave of dark energy is released, transforming the Tree, turning the people of Illusia into monsters called Grimlies, and releasing dark monsters from Mavolia. Keldric and Faye flee, and head for Fa'Diel. A year of wandering later, the dark energy has begun to affect other countries in Fa'Diel. Keldric discovers in Jadd that Ritzia plans to release the Mavolian energy to cover the whole world. He and Faye journey back to Illusia, only to discover Ritzia seemingly possessed and saying that it is their destiny to rule the world. After she runs away, Keldric meets a masked stranger who tells him that he was the one to close the portal centuries ago, sealing up the Maiden who had opened it, Anise, inside. He also reveals that Stroud is Keldric's older brother. When Keldric and Faye reach the portal, they find Stroud and Ritzia fighting. Stroud is trying to prevent Ritzia, possessed by Anise, from destroying the world, but is being mutated by the dark energy. Keldric defeats the mutated Stroud, and then fights Ritzia. Realizing that the only way to close the portal is to defeat Anise, he is forced to kill Ritzia along with her. The spirits of Ritzia and Faye then merge with the Tree of Mana, the portal is sealed, and Illusia is restored. 

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During what is effectively a prequel, Fletch has only been at the News-Tribune as a junior reporter for a short time and Frank (his editor) is losing respect for his new employee. Frank moves Fletch to a different section of the newspaper more than once, but Fletch continues to cause trouble. When Fletch is to run the story of local lawyer Donald Habeck, who requests an interview in order to announce that he is giving 5 million dollars to a local museum, the lawyer turns up dead in the News-Tribune parking lot. Unsurprisingly Frank takes Fletch off the story and gives it to an experienced reporter who has been with the paper for years. Fletch is now charged with investigating a whorehouse—which he does. However, he is not about to give up on the Habeck story, the circumstances of which seem mighty suspicious, especially when Fletch starts to suspect that the legal firm Habeck worked for is one of the most crooked firms around. 

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Set three years before the events of the first Ninja Gaiden (NES), the player controls Ryu Hayabusa, who must save New York City from the forces of Emperor Garuda, a servant of Jaquio. Garuda's minions include the cyborg "Spider", kickboxer Gregory and his manager Jack, former military commander Colonel Allen, and the Japanese nobleman . 

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In Los Angeles, California, down-and-out barfly Henry Chinaski becomes a substitute mail carrier; he quits for a while and lives on his winnings at the race track, then becomes a mail clerk. Chinaski drifts from place to place, surviving through booze and women, with his biting sense of humor and a cynical view of the world.Michael Nordine, "Best L.A. Novel Ever: John Fante's Ask the Dust vs. Charles Bukowski's Post Office, Round 1," LA Weekly, November 2, 2012. 

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The album details, in a series of vignettes, the story of John, a Vietnam vet and boxer, and his "kind of white trash" girlfriend Caroline, who meet at the Virginia State Fair in the 1970s, where John is boxing an exhibition round. They get the idea that they can escape their problems by running off together and travelling across the United States. However, their relationship begins to fray as John's addiction to alcohol comes to light. In Vegas, John leaves Caroline to try to get help ("Goodbye Caroline") but resists treatment ("I Can't Get My Head Around It") and finally Caroline gives up on trying to help John ("I Can't Help You Anymore"). However, the album's final song indicates that everything works out somehow, although much later. "It's a character study and a relationship study," Mann says 

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Kirby and Gooey are on a fishing trip, when suddenly, Dark Matter appears and shatters the planet's rings. He then possesses various Dream Landers, including King Dedede. Kirby and Gooey team up with Rick, Coo, and Kine, as well as new characters Pitch, ChuChu, and Nago. Two endings exist for the game, based on whether the player has collected all the Heart Stars. If the player has not collected all the stars, Kirby and his friends fight King Dedede, who is possessed by Dark Matter. Once Dedede is defeated once, Dark Matter begins to reveal himself, and Kirby must fight Dedede for a second consecutive time. After Dark Matter is defeated, Kirby and Gooey set off on the journey home, only to pause hesitantly at several points along the way. At the end of the credits, the camera pans up to focus on a huge, shadowed orb with one massive eye. This mysterious figure is Zero, the ultimate leader of the Dark Matter Army. If the player has collected all the stars, the player proceeds to fight Dedede as normal. However, Dark Matter then emerges and flies into the atmosphere, with Kirby in hot pursuit, armed with a weapon called the Love-Love Stick, assembled from all the Heart Stars he collected during his journey. After a climactic battle with Dark Matter, Zero himself emerges, leading to a long and difficult battle. After Zero is defeated, peace is finally restored to the universe. 

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Eveready Harton (the name being a pun on "ever-ready hard-on") is sleeping. When two flies are found buzzing around his comically oversized penis, he shoots at them, causing the penis to detach and run in fear. Harton calls his penis back and begins looking around, watching dogs, snakes and birds all having sex and a woman masturbating. He puts a wheel underneath his now-hard penis and heads toward the woman. She asks Harton to lick her nipples, which he does; as he does, the nipple begins squirting breast milk, which Harton swallows. Meanwhile, the woman's vagina comes to life and starts fondling Harton's penis, and Harton begins the act of penetration—only to find that he cannot get his penis in, since her vagina is full of junk. Once he clears that out, he penetrates several times before being bit by a crab, which causes the penis to again detach, shriek in pain and run off. Harton runs after the penis, which finally rids itself of the crab by ejaculating on it and reattaches. Seeing the head of another beautiful woman sticking out from a pile of sand, Harton jumps on it and immediately starts humping it—only to realize he has inadvertently given anal to an old man already on top of the woman. Harton attempts to run away, but his penis is stuck in the old man's rectum, causing the old man to be dragged along behind. After some effort, he gets the penis out and hammers it straight. From there, Harton witnesses a farmer having sex with his donkey and challenges the farmer to a sword fight between their penises; Harton bites the other's penis, which goes limp. As Harton makes his move on the donkey, it runs away, causing Harton's penis to get hair stuck in it. In resignation, he sticks his penis into a fence hole, where a cow begins to lick the penis as the cartoon ends. 

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The main action of Mexico takes place in Mexico over a three-day period in the fictional city of Toledo in 1961. The occasion is the annual bullfighting festival, at which two matadors — one an acclaimed hero of the sport, the other a scrapping contender — are prepared to fight to the death for fame and glory. Through the memories of the book's narrator, Norman Clay, an American journalist of Spanish and Indian descent, Michener provides plenty of historical background, including a depiction of the fictitious Indian civilization that once flourished on city's periphery. The story focuses on bullfighting, but also provides insight into Mexican culture. The reader follows the bulls from their breeding to their "sorting" to the pageantry and spectacle of the bullring, where picadors and banderilleros prepare the bull for the entrance of the matador with his red cape. . Category:1992 American novels Category:Novels by James A. Michener Category:Random House books Category:Novels set in Mexico Category:Fiction set in 1961 Category:Novels set in the 1960s Category:Novels about journalists 

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A terrorist force starts an uprising (and inflicts massive damage across an unidentified country, later retconned to Skully Island which is part of the continent of Usea); efforts to defeat these terrorists through conventional means have failed and the situation turns desperate. In response, a mercenary air force is assembled to take the fight against the enemy and free the nation from the terrorist forces. 

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The King of Fighters '95 marks the beginning of a story arc that later became known as the "Orochi Saga". However, the only elements from the Orochi Saga known in this game is the introduction of Kyo's rival, Iori Yagami, and Rugal's use of the Orochi power. Rugal Bernstein, thought to have perished in an explosion in the previous game, had in fact survived and sent out invitations to the teams from the previous game signed simply ‘R'. Only one of the previous teams failed to attend the new tournament: the American Sports Team, now replaced by the "Rival Team" consisting of Iori Yagami, Billy Kane (from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters), and Eiji Kisaragi (from Art of Fighting 2). Saisyu Kusanagi, Kyo's father, appears as a fighter for the first time (having made a non-playable cameo in KOF '94) as a computer-controlled sub-boss character. After defeating Saisyu in the arcade mode, it is revealed that Saisyu was being brainwashed and that Rugal will fight once again as a boss character, but as an enhanced version named "Omega Rugal". 

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Despite the events at the end of the previous game, the KOF tournament was a huge commercial success and sparked a worldwide fighting craze. Within a few months of the tournament ending, various large corporations had held smaller KOF tournament qualifiers and constructed special KOF stadiums around the world, building the excitement up for the next tournament. News of the tournament spread through every form of media and fans and new fighters from across the globe come to watch the preliminary matches. All of the characters from the previous game return, with the exception of the Boss Team (which was disbanded after its first appearance), Kasumi Todoh (who went off to search for her father), and Mature and Vice (who were killed by Iori Yagami after he was possessed by the Riot of Blood at the conclusion of the previous game). Chizuru Kagura, the sub-boss in the previous game, takes Kasumis place in the Women Fighters Team, while Geese Howard's underling Billy Kane, who previously participated in The King of Fighters '95 tournament, returns to join forces with female agent Blue Mary and wanted felon Ryuji Yamazaki (both from Fatal Fury 3) to form the unlikely "'97 Special Team". Iori returns as a Team Edit character along with Shingo Yabuki, a high school student who patterns his fighting style after his idol and reluctant mentor Kyo Kusanagi. An alternative version of Kyo with his pre- KOF '96 moveset also appears as a hidden character. Iori and Leona will fight as mid-boss characters in the Riot of the Blood curse depending of which characters the player is using. A team of all new characters also appears in the form of the "New Faces Team", consisting of bandmates Yashiro Nanakase, Shermie, and Chris. The New Faces Team will be revealed to be the last three servants from Orochi during the Arcade Mode. Additionally, they fight as sub- boss characters having enhanced abilities than their common forms. Once they are beaten, Orochi will possess Chris' body to fight as the final boss character. 

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Two years have passed since the last King of Fighters tournament. Nobody has seen Kyo Kusanagi or Iori Yagami since they defeated the evil being Orochi at the climax of the 1997 tournament. Invitations are sent to many characters inviting them to a new tournament, which this time around is more of a secretive affair and away from the public eye than the ones in both '96 and '97, with each team now having an additional member. However, the tournament's host remains unknown. The increased number of characters per team, and the story element of the missing Kyo and Iori, lead to a reshuffling of the character roster. K' is introduced as the game's new protagonist with his partner, Maxima, who joins forces with Kyo's former teammates Benimaru Nikaido and Shingo Yabuki to form the new Hero Team. Takuma Sakazaki rejoins the Art of Fighting Team as its fourth member. Mai Shiranui finally becomes an official member of the Fatal Fury Team for the first time in the series. King joins forces with Blue Mary (formerly a member of the "'97 Special Team") to form the new Women Fighters Team with Kasumi Todoh (last seen in KOF '96) and Li Xiangfei (from Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers). The three returning teams also gain a new member: Whip for the Ikari Warriors Team, Bao for the Psycho Soldier Team, and Jhun Hoon for the Korea Justice Team. The game also introduces two clones of Kyo Kusanagi, Kyo-1 and Kyo-2, as Team Edit characters based on previous playable incarnations of the character. The real Kyo also returns with his rival, Iori, but they are only secret playable characters. The game's antagonist is Krizalid, an agent from the mysterious organization NESTS who uses the data he obtained from his enemies to activate an army of Kyo clones that NESTS themselves had created after the fight against Orochi. He is faced in two states: first he appears with a special coat that analyzes an opponent's data. Once he's defeated, he burns away his coat and increases his strength while having stronger moves. After Krizalid's defeat, his superior kills him via falling debris while other members of NESTS attack K' and Maxima, who are revealed to be former NESTS agents and that the duo succeed in defeating their enemies before making their escape from the collapsing location of their battle against Krizalid. It's also revealed that K' is a test subject designed to replicate Kyo's techniques. Hero Team *K' *Maxima *Benimaru Nikaido *Shingo Yabuki Fatal Fury Team *Terry Bogard *Andy Bogard *Joe Higashi *Mai Shiranui Art of Fighting Team *Ryo Sakazaki *Robert Garcia *Yuri Sakazaki *Takuma Sakazaki Ikari Warriors Team *Ralf Jones *Clark Still *Leona *Whip Psycho Soldier Team *Athena Asamiya *Sie Kensou *Chin Gentsai *Bao Women Fighters Team *King *Blue Mary *Kasumi Todoh *Li Xiangfei Korea Justice Team *Kim Kaphwan *Chang Koehan *Choi Bounge *Jhun Hoon Single Entry *Kyo-1 *Kyo-2 Hidden Characters *Kyo Kusanagi *Iori Yagami Boss *Krizalid 

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The story follows an unnamed narrator who reads a story about a man who died after accidentally sucking a needle down his throat. He rages at the gullibility of humanity for believing such a hoax. He vows to never fall for such odd stories. Just then, a strange-looking creature made of a keg and wine bottles appears. The creature announces in a heavy accent that he is the Angel of the Odd — and that he is responsible for causing such strange events. The man, unconvinced, drives the angel away and takes an alcohol-induced nap. Instead of a 20-minute nap, he wakes up two hours later, having missed an appointment to renew his fire insurance. Ironically, his house has caught fire and his only escape is out a window using a ladder the crowd below has provided for him. As he steps down, a hog brushes against the ladder, causing the narrator to fall and fracture his arm. Later, the narrator's attempts at wooing a rich woman to be his wife end in failure when she realizes he is wearing a wig which he must wear since the fire in his apartment singed off his hair. Then, he tries to woo another woman who also leaves him, scoffing at him for ignoring her as she passes. In reality, a particle had gotten into his eye, momentarily blinding him, just as she passed. Finally, the narrator decides his ill fortune is cause for him to end his life. He decides to commit suicide by drowning himself in a river after removing his clothes ("for there is no reason why we cannot die as we were born", he says). However, a crow runs off with "the most indispensable portion" of his clothes and the man chases after it. As he is running, he runs off a cliff. However, he grabs on to the long rope of a hot air balloon as it happens to be floating by. The Angel of the Odd reappears to him and makes him admit that the bizarre really can happen. The narrator agrees, but is unable to physically perform the pledge that the Angel of the Odd demands because of his fractured arm. The Angel then cuts the rope and the man falls down onto his newly-rebuilt house through the chimney and into the dining room. The man then realizes this was his punishment. "Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd." 

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Secretary of State Vince Hadden brings in Gabriel Logan, Lian Xing, and Lawrence Mujari to testify in Congress about their relationship to the Agency. He believes all three to be guilty, and questions them after they assassinate Shi-Hao from a hotel in Japan. The three do not realize that Hadden is involved in the conspiracy, and is looking for scapegoats. Gabe begins by describing the first Syphon Filter investigation. He and Lian went to Costa Rica to find missing Agent Ellis. When they arrive, the two see that Erich Rhoemer has ordered Ellis killed, but Gabe must continue his mission and identify what Rhoemer was doing at the drug plantation. Gabe chases Rhoemer onto an airplane despite his Agency superior Edward Benton denying him permission. Gabe did not know back then that Benton and the Agency controlled Rhoemer, who escaped from the plane. Mujari testifies next, and tells Hadden how he once worked for a resistance during the Apartheid era in South Africa. At the Pugari Gold Mine, he discovered that mining slaves had caught a deadly plague and the mine owners were covering it up. Mujari retrieved samples and gave them to Teresa Lipan. When it's Lian's turn to testify, she details her first encounter with Gabe during the Soviet–Afghan War and her role in the Costa Rica operation. Meanwhile, Gabe goes to Ireland with MI-6 agent Maggie Powers in an effort to scuttle a shipment of Syphon Filter, denying possession to the consortium and the local IRA cell. On board the S.S. Lorelei, Gabe plants several explosives and finds a document that will point to a virus test site in Australia. He also looks for any information on the mysterious arms consortium that controls the Agency. Gabe uncovers a mole in MI-6, Nigel Cummings, who is aiding them. He kills Nigel and secures the last viral transport on the docks. The Lorelei is sunk with all hands. Back in Washington, D.C., Gabe talks about his first meeting with Benton during the Soviet-Afghan conflict. Benton claimed to be a CIA agent transporting weapons to Afghans rebelling against the Soviets, but when Gabe and Ellis escort the convoy, the Afghans attack them. Gabe gets into Kabul and meets Lian, who sets up the diversion. However, a tank gets in their way, so Gabe destroys it. He learns that Benton was supplying arms to the Soviets, and was really an Agency operative. As Hadden questions Gabe, Lian teams up with Maggie to abduct Dr. Elsa Weissenger from the Australian test site. Elsa is ready to betray the conspirators since Aramov left her behind, and she has Lian assemble a vaccine for aborigines held captive by Commander Silvers. Silvers plans to kill the test subjects, so Lian kills him first. When she returns to Elsa, Lian finds her gone. Hadden accuses Gabe of lying and corruption. He believes Gabe murdered Teresa, but Teresa surprises him by appearing herself. Agency operative Jason Chance had only injured her, not killed. She describes her first meeting with Gabe during her time as an officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. A group of NSA agents headed by Colonel Silvers were posing as FBI to eradicate a private militia that had recovered data from a government satellite. Gabe, as an Agency operative, saved her life, and helped her when she rescued the wife and son of the militia leader. She left the ATF and joined the Agency. Teresa faked her death to find the people behind the Agency. Her investigations into Aramov yielded a connection to Hadden himself. Before Gabe can apprehend him, Mara kills Hadden. She and several consortium terrorists take over the Senate building, but Gabe prevents her from detonating any explosives. He chases her onto a train full of hostages, and wounds her. In a post-credits cutscene, Mara escapes despite being incarcerated. Gabe decides to find her, but for now the Syphon Filter crisis appears to be over with the death of Hadden. Gabe will become the new Agency director, and free it from corruption. Little does he know that an operation is ongoing near the S.S. Lorelei's wreck site. People are recovering the viral crates, and Mara is heard laughing, setting the stage for Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain. 

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Following the events of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Lara Croft is presumed dead, buried under the collapsed Great Pyramid of Giza. At Lara's home of Croft Manor, three former friends and associates—Lara's butler Winston, Father Patrick Dunstan and Charles Kane—reminisce over some of Lara's early exploits following a memorial service. The first story follows Lara's quest through the catacombs of Rome in search of the Philosopher's stone. She is pursued by Larson Conway and Pierre DuPont, adversaries she would later encounter during the events of Tomb Raider. The second story, recounted by Kane, sees Lara hunting the Spear of Destiny, lost on the ocean floor since World War II. Infiltrating Zapadnaya Litsa, she smuggles herself aboard a Russian Naval submarine commanded by Admiral Yarofev and his Mafia handler Sergei Mikhailov, who also seeks the Spear. Lara recovers the Spear, but she is ambushed by Mikhailov. The Spear's power is unleashed, killing Mikhailov, damaging the submarine and wounding Yarofev. Lara escapes the submarine, but Yarofev remains behind as the Spear destroys the submarine. The third story, told by Dunstan, follows a teenage Lara when she secretly follows Dunstan to an island apparently haunted by demonic forces. Lara confronts several apparitions and monsters which inhabit the island, including a horse- riding humanoid demon called Vladimir Kaleta who was trapped in a prison of running water by the island's former monastic community. Dunstan is taken hostage by Kaleta, who forces Lara to block the river imprisoning him. Using a book discovered in the ruined monastery's library, Lara says Kaleta's demon name "Verdelet", taking control of him and banishing him from Earth. The fourth story, related by Winston, shows Lara infiltrating the corporate headquarters of her former mentor Werner Von Croy to retrieve the Iris, the pursuit of which first caused the schism between Lara and Von Croy. Their stories completed, the three toast Lara. In parallel to these events, Von Croy digs through the rubble of the Great Pyramid in a desperate attempt to find her. He finally discovers Lara's backpack among the ruins of the Great Pyramid but no sign of her body: he declares "We've found her!", presuming that Lara is alive. 

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Darcy Deeton is a twelve-year-old girl who loves her older brother, David. After becoming jealous when he falls in love with Jayne Evans, Darcy inadvertently leads David to his death in a car accident. The Deetons decide to donate David's most important organ, his heart. Darcy is so guilt-ridden about his death that she is determined to find the person who has his heart so she can find some closure. Darcy embarks on a wild adventure with her best friend, Sam. She goes on a journey with Sam and finds the recipient of David's heart, Winston Pawling. 

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After the events of Bloody Roar 3, Xion, who is possessed by the Unborn, an evil spirit, attacks the dragon temple, awakening the dragon. The dragon is a weapon of Gaia, the Earth's will, and is supposed to awaken in the presence of evil. However, if freed too long, it can inadvertently destroy the world itself. The dragon is successfully resealed by the temple's head miko at the cost of her life, leaving the late miko's sister, Mana, to watch over the seal in Ryoho, the temple's priest and the vessel of the dragon. Other than attacking the temple, Xion also stabs a woman named Nagi, imbuing her with his power as well as that of Gaia's, making her both his lifesaver and enemy. A year later, the dragon is about to break free again, causing disturbances among the zoanthropes triggering earthquakes. Each of the zoanthropes investigate and eventually find the source in the dragon temple. In some cases, Ryoho and Mana invite them to help strengthen the seal, while others come on their own accord. In most of the characters' endings, Mana manages to seal the dragon and Ryoho comes out alive. In Nagi's ending, in addition to sealing the dragon and saving Ryoho, she kills Xion and the Unborn. In Xion's ending, the Unborn is killed, but not before murdering Ryoho and the dragon. In Reiji's ending, the confrontation at the temple ends with him murdering Ryoho and the dragon. 

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After Geese Howard's death in the original Fatal Fury, a mysterious nobleman becomes the sponsor of the new "King of Fighters" tournament. This time, the tournament is held worldwide with fighters around the globe competing. As the single-player mode progresses, the mysterious challenger begins defeating the participants from the first Fatal Fury game, searching for the man responsible for defeating Geese. 

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The narrator reminisces about the time twenty years ago when he worked as a waiter in a tavern in Luzhen (魯鎮), a fictional town where many of Lu Xun's stories are set. Working class men wore short coats and drank standing at the counter, whereas the richer customers who wore long gowns sat and ate inside. Kong Yiji was the only customer who wore a long gown and stood. Kong Yiji is a self-styled scholar who has failed to pass the xiucai examination but arrogantly fills his speech with muddled classical tags, refuses to perform menial work and steals to avoid starvation. He is treated with cruelty and contempt by the other customers, one of whom gave him the nickname "Kong Yiji" based on his real surname Kong and a meaningless sequence of characters from a children's elementary text. Although Kong Yiji is a thief, he makes a point of always settling his debts with the tavernkeeper. He tries to teach the narrator orthographic trivia, but the boy rejects him; when he ingratiates himself with the town's children, they laugh at him and cadge food. Later, Kong Yiji is caught stealing and beaten until his legs break. He drags himself to the tavern and orders some wine, after which he is not seen again and presumably dies as a result of his injuries. The tavernkeeper remembers Kong Yiji's unpaid bills for a while, but he is otherwise forgotten. 

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In Saint Paul, Minnesota, the long-running live radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion prepares for its final broadcast. The radio station's new parent company has scheduled the show's home, the storied Fitzgerald Theater, for demolition and dispatched "the Axeman" to judge whether or not to save the show. In between musical acts, and under the watchful eye of PI Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), the show's denizens mingle and reminisce, including: the singing Johnson Girls, Yolanda (Meryl Streep), her sister Rhonda (Lily Tomlin), and daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan); cowboy duo Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly); pregnant PA Molly (Maya Rudolph); the Stage Manager, Makeup Lady, and Sound Effects Man (real life Radio Acting Co. members Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith); and the show's creator and host, Garrison Keillor. The show is visited by an otherworldly "Dangerous Woman" (Virginia Madsen), revealed to be a listener who died during a past broadcast, now returned as the angel Asphodel; she lends comfort to the cast and crew for the show's ending and the death of the elderly Chuck Akers (L. Q. Jones) backstage. The Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) arrives and declares the show too old-fashioned to keep on the air. Though Asphodel escorts him from the theater to an untimely demise, the show is still cancelled. Years later, the former cast reunites at Mickey's Diner with plans for a farewell tour. Their conversation pauses as they are joined by Asphodel. 

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Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny decide to play detective; they go around the town solving minor "crimes" for a dollar. They first investigate the disappearance of a pie left sitting on the windowsill of an elderly couple's home. After examining the scene of the crime, they come to the conclusion (based on no evidence at all) that the husband planned to murder and dismember his wife to have the pie for himself; however, before he could go through with the plan, the pie had already been eaten by their dog, where the boys found it. Horrified by their outrageous accusations, the couple hurriedly send them away, but not before giving them the dollar they had promised. The boys' next case involves the recovery of a little girl's stolen doll. After bringing Butters in for "questioning" and ordering him produce a semen sample, they get a tip-off that Bill and Fosse have the doll. They manage to recover the doll from them, despite the interference of another group of kids playing FBI who attempt to assert jurisdictional privilege and take over the case. The successful recovery gets the boys recognized by the Park County PD, and they are made Junior Detectives. However, Lieutenant Dawson, the department's head detective, immediately orders them to bust a meth lab, complaining that that mayor has been pressuring the department to take care of it. Ignorant as to the nature of a meth lab and naive to any danger, Stan knocks on the door of the lab and simply calls out, "Uh, police. Open up." The criminals open fire at the "police," but end up killing themselves, destroying the lab, and causing a great deal of property damage to the surrounding area. Following this incident, Dawson chews the boys out for 'getting careless'. Meanwhile, other detectives mock the boys, and it is revealed that many of the cops on the force are corrupt. After a confrontation in the locker room, Kyle and Cartman admit they no longer want to "play Detective" and suggest they return to playing laundromat owners. Stan passionately counters that he wasn't happy playing laundromat and wants his play time to "mean something." The boys agree not to quit, and rededicate themselves to the force. The boys are next sent to a strip club owned by Gino, the leader of Colorado's largest drug cartel, which operated the original meth lab. Gino and the cartel members quickly discover that the boys are undercover cops, and another intense shoot-out ensues. Once again, despite their only weapons being finger guns and yelling "bang bang," the boys remain unharmed while nearly all of the criminals are shot or killed, while outside Lieutenant Dawson starts chewing the real FBI for arriving and taking over the situation. Three cops show up to give the boys backup, but it is revealed that two of them, Murphy and Jenkins, are working with Gino. They shoot Hopkins, the one good cop who earlier defended the boys, though he survives. Murphy and Jenkins turn on Gino and kill him, so that they can take his share of the money. However, Murphy then kills Jenkins, claiming that he was untrustworthy. Turning to the boys, Murphy announces that the only person he now cannot trust is himself, and commits suicide. The rest of the force arrives, and the boys are credited by Dawson with cleaning up the police force and are offered positions as full detectives. The boys, however, find the reality of detective work more intense than what they envisioned, and decide to go back to playing laundromat instead. As they play in Cartman's basement, Butters emerges from the bathroom and proudly announces that he was finally able to produce a semen sample by imagining Stan's mom's breasts. The boys inform him that they aren't playing detective anymore, and no longer need a semen sample. Cartman, though, offers Butters to have his pants cleaned for $4.95. 

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In 1989, Josey Aimes flees from her abusive husband back to her hometown in northern Minnesota with her children, Sammy and Karen, and moves in with her parents, Alice and Hank. Hank is ashamed of Josey, who had Sammy as a teenager by an unknown father, and believes Josey is promiscuous. While working a job washing hair, Josey reconnects with an old acquaintance, Glory Dodge, who works at the local iron mine and suggests Josey do the same, as a job there pays six times more than what Josey's making now. Josey's pursuit of the job further strains her relationship with Hank, who also works at the mine and believes women shouldn't be working there, so she and her children move in with Glory and her husband, Kyle. Josey quickly befriends several other female workers at the mine and soon realizes the women are constant targets for sexual harassment and humiliation by most of their male co-workers, who, like Hank, believe the women are taking jobs more appropriate for men. Josey in particular is targeted by Bobby Sharp, her ex- boyfriend from high school. Josey tries to talk to her supervisor, Arlen Pavich, about the problem, but he refuses to take her concerns seriously. The women experience additional harassment and even abuse in retaliation, and Bobby spreads rumors that Josey attempted to seduce him, leading his wife to publicly berate and humiliate Josey at Sammy's hockey game. Sammy begins to resent the way the townspeople treat them and comes to believe the gossip about his mother's alleged promiscuity. Josey takes her concerns to the mine's owner, Don Pearson, but despite his previous assurances that he is there to help, she arrives to find that he has invited Pavich to the meeting, along with several other executives and offers to accept her resignation immediately. She refuses, and after Pearson implies he believes the rumors about her promiscuity, leaves devastated. Later, after being sexually assaulted by Bobby at work, she quits and asks Bill White, a lawyer friend of Kyle and Glory, to help her file a lawsuit against the company. Bill advises her to recruit other women to form a class action lawsuit, which would be the first of its kind. The female miners, however, fear losing their jobs and facing additional harassment, so Josey attempts to go ahead with the case alone. She also discovers that Glory has Lou Gehrig's Disease, and her health is declining rapidly. Alice and Hank argue over Josey's lawsuit, and when Hank still refuses to forgive his daughter, Alice leaves him. At a union meeting, Josey attempts to address the miners and explain her reasons for suing the mine, but they constantly interrupt and insult her, leading Hank to stand up for his daughter and reprimand his co-workers for their treatment of Josey and all the women at the mine. He and Alice then reconcile. In court, the mining company's attorney attempts to hold Josey's sexual history against her, based on Bobby's testimony that Sammy is the result of a consensual sexual relationship between Josey and her high school teacher, Paul Lattavansky. Josey then reveals that after school one day, where she and Bobby had been serving detention together after being caught kissing, she was raped by Lattavansky, which led to her becoming pregnant with Sammy. Hank attacks the teacher in question and Bill gets a recess after Josey storms out of the courtroom. Sammy still refuses to believe his mother and runs away, until Kyle urges him to reconsider, and he and Josey embrace after having a talk. Bill cross-examines Bobby and gets him to admit he witnessed Paul rape Josey, but was too scared to do anything about it. Glory, who has come to the court in her wheelchair and is unable to speak, has Kyle read a letter saying she stands with Josey, though still not enough to qualify for a class action suit. After a pause, many other women stand, followed by family members and even several male miners who didn't harass the female ones. The mining company is forced to pay the women for their suffering and establish a landmark sexual harassment policy at the workplace. 

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The game has two separate storylines; those being the one described in the official playing manual included with the CD-ROM copy and the one which is found on the 3D Realms/Apogee website and portrayed in the game itself. 

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On 19 May 1983 at approximately 10:48 p.m, Diane Downs, drives to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield, Oregon with a gunshot wound to her arm. She claims that an unknown assailant attempted to carjack her and shot her three children: Karen, 9, Shauna, 7, and Robby, 3. Her eldest daughter Karen was suffering a temporary loss of speech due to a stroke after the shooting, but recovers sufficiently to serve as a witness in court against her mother; Diane's son is paralyzed due to the gunshot. In a flashback, her father Wes abandons Diane by abusing her and locking her out of the house. She was eventually tried and convicted of murder and attempted murder. During the trial, the prosecution plays Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" to demonstrate to the jury Diane's choice of song used to motivate her to kill. Diane Downs is sentenced to life in prison, and her two surviving children are adopted by the prosecutor Frank Joziak and his wife, Lola. 

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Thomas Chacko, or "Aadu Thoma" as he is widely known, is a local goon and a quarry owner, who is notorious for being the undefeated champion in his confrontations. He is the son of retired school headmaster Chacko (Chacko master), the President's medal winner in mathematics. Thoma is a blemish for respectable Chacko's reputation, and both never get along on any occasion. His mother and sister are left to choose between sides; while Chacko master's brother – Manimala Vakkachan, supports Thoma. In the flashback, unlike his father, Thomas was not good at math, but was a child prodigy in mechanical and electronic gadgetry. He made an AM radio receiver inside a soap case, at a time when phonographs were the fad of the time. Thomas's talent astonished others, whereas his father saw them as a waste of time. He always compared his son to the best student in the class – Balu, adding to his pressure. His father asked his language teacher Ravunni master to grade his paper so as to fail him, on the belief that only low grades will provoke him to study harder. When Thomas found this, he became outraged and ran away from the village, after stabbing Balu on the palm with a compass. Fourteen years later, he returned as a changed man, no longer a prodigy. His father still hate him and profess to love his sister more, who lived up to the expectations. Pookoya, a local baron, is the newly made enemy of Thoma, along with his sub-inspector (S.I) friend Kuttikkadan; for supporting Pookoya's daughter's relationship with a penniless teacher. Due to Thoma's relationship with a prostitute, revealed when the police shame him publicly, the arranged marriage of his sister almost fail, further angering his father. This force him to rat his son out to the police on a later occasion, surprising even the S.I. with the act. The relationship between the two further decline after the incident, whereby entering into a fit of rage Thoma cuts off the sleeves of his father's shirts. Chacko master on the other hand, repaint his son's lorry with the name Chekuthan (devil) and plant a coconut tree in front of their house, naming it his son – further insulting him. Meanwhile, Ravunni master, who resigned after Thomas ran away from the village, comes back with his daughter Thulasi (Thomas's childhood friend). Thulasi as well as the Vicar of the church and Vakkachan, try to mediate between the two by trying to get Thomas invited by his father to his sister's wedding. Thomas who came hoping for the better, gets further insulted by his father. This incident finally make Jansy, Thoma's sister stand against her father, stating she prefers her brother's small necklace to her father's high dowry in marriage. While the necklace was actually a gift from Thulasi given in the name of Thoma, this leads him to be deserted on the day of her wedding. Her mother, who was waiting for the wedding, leave him as well. With his pride struck the worst blow, Chacko master is left all alone to rethink on his actions. Not so long after, Thoma gets stabbed by another goon employed by Pookoya, when he helps his daughter elope with her lover. Chacko master secretly visit his son in the hospital with regret. Coming back to health, Thoma's attempt at revenge is foiled when Thulasi interferes. On learning that Thulasi loves him, he try to prevent her. With her help, he tries to back out from his wrong course of life. Filled with the guilt of ruining his son's life, Chacko master attempts suicide, which Thomas see and foil and the two reconcile. With a newfound joy, they together bring back his mother. Thomas's enemies unite against him. In a tragic turn of events, Chacko master is shot by S.I. Kuttikadan while targeting Thoma. Chacko master succumbs to his injuries and dies in front of Thomas. He becomes enraged and attacks Kuttikadan. At last Thomas kills him and is taken into police custody on charges of murder, leaving the hapless family in tears. 

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An arrogant wealthy capitalist named Raffaella (Mariangela Melato) is vacationing on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea with friends—swimming, sunbathing, and talking incessantly about the virtues of her class and the worthlessness of the political left. Her nonstop political monologue infuriates one of the underclass deckhands on her yacht, Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini), a dedicated Communist who manages to restrain his opinions to avoid upsetting his boss and losing his good job. Despite her humiliating insults, Gennarino agrees to take her out on a dinghy late in the evening to see the rest of her friends who have gone ahead without her. On their way, the outboard motor gives out, leaving them stranded in the middle of the sea with no land in sight. After a night at sea, Gennarino manages to get the motor running again but has no idea where they are or how to get to land. Eventually they spot an island and head toward it, destroying their dinghy in the process. On land, they discover that there is no one on the island except them, and they are effectively shipwrecked. Accustomed to having everything done for her, Raffaella begins ordering Gennarino about, but this is the final straw for him and he snaps, refusing to assist her any longer. Raffaella reacts with a string of insults, but he gives as good as he gets, and they split up to explore the island on their own. Much better suited to island life than Raffaella, Gennarino is soon catching and cooking lobsters. Gradually their roles become reversed. While she has to rely on him for food, Gennarino wants her to be his slave, convinced that women are born to serve men. He even forces her to endure the indignity of washing his underwear. When she reacts in angry defiance, he slaps her around. Undeniably attracted to Raffaella, Gennarino attempts to rape her, but then changes his mind, deciding that it would be more satisfying if she gave herself to him willingly. Later that evening, Raffaella does approach him and both willingly engage in repeated, passionate, sexual relations. He wants her to fall in love with him, and as their differences are gradually forgotten, they reach a kind of balance, although Gennarino still hits her and she takes the more subservient role. Eventually they spot a ship, and although they are both reluctant to disrupt their newfound paradise, they signal the ship and are rescued. After returning home, they soon revert to their former lives and social roles—she once again embracing the upper-class lifestyles of her friends; he returning to a life of a lower-class worker and husband. They both understand something profound and unsettling about what they've experienced, but Raffaella is unwilling to abandon the society of privilege that has such a strong hold on her. Abandoned by the object of his desires, Gennarino returns defeated to his sad life and loveless marriage—far removed from an idyllic island in the Mediterranean Sea. 

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Late one night, near Billings, Montana, a gas tanker is driving by when a meteoroid suddenly hits in front of the truck. The driver attempts to swerve out of the way, but loses control and overturns and the tanker explodes, causing a massive fire. The next morning, the fire is burning out of control and it is reported that the tanker was hit by a lightning bolt. With the area evacuated, FEMA Director Jack Wallach (Michael Biehn), and a colleague, Adam Marquez (Carlos Gómez) are flying via helicopter over the area, inspecting the fire, when they notice that two people are still in the area. It's a man on the roof of his house, trying to save it, despite his wife's protests. Jack and Adam land and take the woman aboard. Her husband starts to suffer from smoke inhalation when Jack manages to get him aboard the helicopter. Jack just barely manages to escape as a propane tank causes a massive explosion and destroys the home. Later that evening, at the National Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, Dr. Lily McKee (Annabella Sciorra), the Observatory's director, is observing a comet which is going to pass by Earth on the 4th of July. Later on, when she goes home and looks at some photos, she sees what she believes are asteroids. The next day, she informs Jack and Adam of the possibility of an impact and calls them in. She tells them of two asteroids: Helios and Eros, whose orbits have been disrupted by the comet and may hit the Earth. Helios would hit with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs and generate temperatures five times hotter than the Sun in the area of impact. Everything within a 150-mile radius would be destroyed and the impact would also spray molten rock another 70 miles. Eros is four miles across and would cause a global ecological disaster if it did indeed hit. Then, Max Jenson (Brian Hill), one of Lily's assistants, informs Lily, Jack and Adam that Helios is getting closer to the Earth and that the observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii had picked up some smaller asteroids that the National Observatory cannot see and they believe that a small one hit Montana. Jack and Adam realize that the fire was indeed caused by an asteroid impact. Later on, Lily and Max check Helios' trajectory and realize that it will indeed hit the Earth. Their numbers show that Helios will hit the Kansas City area within about 48 hours. They inform the President and he orders that the city be evacuated. Ultimately, a fragment of Helios strikes a dam in the Kansas City area, causing flooding in the city. Wallach, who drives into the city to rescue two stranded firefighters and a drunk driver who struck their vehicle, gets caught in the flood. He and the firefighters survive, but the drunk driver dies. Unfortunately, it is discovered Eros will hit also and will be an extinction-level event. The United States attempts to destroy Eros using lasers mounted on three jet fighter aircraft, but one of the lasers is damaged when the jet carrying it takes off and climbs to altitude through a violent storm. After making some last-minute adjustments, the lasers on the other two aircraft are used to seemingly destroy Eros. It is discovered that the mission was only partially successful. Instead of destroying the asteroid, the lasers broke it into many small yet deadly pieces. The largest piece and several smaller fragments of Eros hit Dallas, Texas, where Lily's son and father are. The city is devastated by the impacts. Lily desperately searches the city for her father and son, who survive the blast and aftershocks. Her father ends up trapped and hurt in the ruins of the hospital where he worked, while her son Elliot wanders off trying to find help. After a search, Lily locates her father and with the help of nearby firemen, rescues him, but goes on to try to rescue Elliot. After searching the ruined city, she finally locates Elliot in a large impact crater. Jack arrives to help in a helicopter. He rescues Elliot and the four return to base where they watch the comet pass by Earth, and are relieved it won't return to cause trouble for another 4,000 years. 

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The game is based around the quest of three brothers to retrieve the talisman stolen by the forces of evil and return it to their home village, Tambry, in the country of Holm. The player begins as Julian, the eldest of the three brothers; if unsuccessful with this character, the player thens take control of Philip, the next oldest, then finally the youngest of the three, Kevin. In addition to recovering the talisman, which is kept by an evil necromancer, the player must complete a number of other tasks which ultimately prove vital to the quest - save the king's daughter, gain the aid of a sea turtle, and kill an evil witch in her castle - and gather a number of artefacts which enable access to the strange dimension in which the necromancer resides. 

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As all of Springfield rushes to send out their tax returns just before midnight on April 15, Homer realizes he did not file his. He rushes and provides false information before delivering it to the post office. The IRS discovers Homer's fraud and arrests him. To avoid prison, Homer agrees to help Agent Johnson of the FBI. With a hidden microphone under his shirt, Homer uncovers that his coworker Charlie is leading a group planning to assault all government officials, and has him arrested by the FBI for conspiracy. Impressed, Johnson reveals to Homer that in 1945, President Harry S. Truman printed a one trillion-dollar bill to help reconstruct post-war Europe and enlisted Montgomery Burns to transport the bill. However, it never arrived and the FBI suspects Burns still has it with him. Homer is sent in to investigate. At the Burns estate, Homer searches for the bill before Burns, who believes Homer is a reporter from Collier's magazine, reveals that he keeps it in his wallet. Johnson and Agent Miller burst in and arrest Burns, who, insisting he's innocent, protests that the government oppresses the average American. Moved by Burns' speech, Homer knocks out the FBI agents and frees Burns. The two men go to Smithers, who suggests they leave the country. Burns takes Smithers and Homer in his old plane, setting off to find an island and start a new country. The three land in Cuba and appear before Fidel Castro. Burns tries to buy the island, but Castro foils his plan when asks to see the trillion-dollar bill and then refuses to give it back. Later, Burns, Smithers, and Homer are on a makeshift raft. Smithers asks whether Burns will be facing jail time; Burns replies that, if it is a crime to love one's country or steal a trillion dollars or bribe a jury, he is guilty."The Trouble with Trillions" The Simpsons.com. Retrieved on November 3, 2007 

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Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson are the (unnamed) proprietors of an escort agency, Dreamytime Escorts. Mayall's character is devious, low-minded, calculating and stupid; Edmondson's merely very stupid. Unusually, rather than providing businessmen with female companionship, the activities of their escort agency essentially involve the pair swooping on unsuspecting foreigners who call them, and forcing them to take part in a drinking binge at their expense. The two are alcohol-obsessed; when their home-brewed beer (which takes a mere two days to brew and has a head made from washing-up liquid) isn't available, they steal from the delivery lorries pulling up at the off-licence downstairs: Edmondson's character dives out of the window into a large builders' bucket and is hauled back up by Mayall. Their next-door neighbour is Mr. Jolly, a psychopathic contract killer played by Peter Cook. Jolly's modus operandi is to hack his victims to death with a meat cleaver while playing classic Tom Jones tunes from the 1960s to drown their cries. Heimi Henderson, who owns the off-licence downstairs, has refused demands for protection money by Mr. Lovebucket, an effete gangster played by Peter Richardson whose abiding love is his Citroën DS car. Mayall and Edmondson intercept a request intended for Mr. Jolly to "take out" the radio presenter and game show host Nicholas Parsons, who appears as himself. Parsons is due to open Henderson's off- licence, and Lovebucket wants to put a stop to it. Misinterpreting the request, they spend an evening with Parsons, who stays in their company because he believes them to be competition winners, the real ones having been pushed off the road by the Dreamytime Escorts' van in an earlier scene. The two are confronted the following morning by Lovebucket, who wants to know what they've done with the money provided with the contract (which they have used to buy 1574 large gin and tonics). Lovebucket insists that they complete the contract. The two return to Parsons's house armed with a gun, chainsaw and grenades but fail to kill him as he leaves by helicopter to the off-licence to open it. They chase after the helicopter with Lovebucket and his gang pursuing them but crash their van into a skip. Parsons reaches the off-licence but can't find Henderson so he goes upstairs and meets Mr. Jolly and is presumably killed by him. Mayall and Edmondson got into their office and start packing their suitcases to go and live in Rio but see into Jolly's office and watch him talking to Lovebucket. Some of the gang members go into their office only to find it empty as the two have escaped through the window into the off- licence where they are told by Henderson that Parsons is opening it, much to their excitement. Shortly after Henderson overhears the two talking about killing Parsons, causing Mayall to shoot him dead, but tricks Edmondson into thinking he did it. Edmondson decides to have a drink but instead takes a bottle of explosive tonic water from a shelf causing an explosion in the off- licence. It is revealed during the credits that the two survived and are walking along a canal where Mayall knocks Edmondson into it before walking off with Edmondson swimming after him. 

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Abby McClure (Doris Day) is a widow with three sons who runs the lumberyard that her husband owned. Her matchmaking sister Maxine (Pat Carroll) tricks her into calling widower Jake Iverson (Brian Keith) and inviting him to the business dinner party Abby is having that night. Not interested in the trouble his sexy, adultery-minded neighbor Cleo (Elaine Devry) is trying to get him into, Jake arrives at Abby's and is bored by all of the matchmaking dialogue. Jake makes up an excuse to leave, but later runs into Abby at an all-night supermarket. Embarrassed by being caught in a fib, Jake meets Abby at a local drive-in run by the wise-cracking Herbie (George Carlin) and the two stay out until 2 a.m. A romance develops, much to the chagrin of Jake's teenage daughter Stacey (Barbara Hershey) and Abby's three sons, Flip, Mitch and Jason (John Findlater, Jimmy Bracken, and Richard Steele). The children make certain that neither Jake nor Abby can be comfortable at the other's home, so the pair wind up more than once at the drive-in, before finally falling in love. Fed up with the situation, they elope, not telling their children that they have married until the next day when the children discover them in bed together. From then on, Abby's sons fight with Iverson's possessive daughter Stacey; while Flip and Stacey both are hostile to the idea of a step-parent; and even Abby's sheepdog and Jake's poodle are incompatible. Neither's house is large enough for the family of six --not including Abby's live-in maid, Molly (Alice Ghostley), so they borrow a camper and use it as a bedroom while they move into Abby's house and eventually put Jake's up for sale. The morning after a bedtime argument, Abby drives off in the camper in a rage; Jake is dumped out clad only in boxers and clutching a teddy bear. After running through the neighborhood, he gets Herbie to lend him some clothes and drive him back to his house. Once Abby discovers what has happened, she returns only to find Jake gone. She is joined by a band of hippies she meets when she reaches the drive-in. When the camper collides with a livestock truck carrying chickens, Abby and the hippies are arrested. Hearing of the accident, Jake and the children rush to her rescue, colliding with the same chicken truck. The angry driver assaults Jake and the children (and pets) unite in his defense. At the station-house the parents and children are joyfully reconciled, and the family finally buys a huge two-story house big enough for a family of six, a maid, and two dogs. The title of the movie comes from a scene where the family goes out for Chinese food, and one of the kids notices that because they are a large group, they get something extra: "With six you get eggroll!" 

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Judge Raghunath is a wealthy district judge who convicts Jagga, a man whose father was a criminal, of rape, on little evidence. The judge believes that "good people are born to good people, and criminals are born to criminals." Jagga later escapes and kidnaps the judge's wife Leela for revenge. When he finds out that she has just become pregnant, he releases her after four days and plans a different kind of revenge. Leela's reputation is smeared by suspicions that she was unfaithful to her husband and the judge throws her out of the house, rejecting her pleas that the child is his. She has a son, Raj, and they live in poverty as a result of being estranged from the father. As a child, Raj befriends Rita in school, but he is removed from the school rolls while trying to maintain a job as a shoeshine, and Rita moves to another city. One day, Raj meets Jagga, who convinces him to adopt a life of petty crime in order to save his starving mother. Raj grows up into a talented criminal, going in and out of short stays in jail, and working for Jagga's gang, while his mother is under the impression that he is an honest businessman. Raj never forgets Rita, keeping her birthday picture in his home, though he worries that she would dislike him if she knew what kind of man he has grown into. While planning a bank robbery with his friends, Raj realises they need an automobile. He snatches a woman's purse when she steps out of the car, but finds no keys, and pretends to pursue the thief to release suspicion from himself. After his elaborate act, he returns the purse to the woman, who is charmed by his personality and apparent selflessness. Later, when Raj successfully steals a car, he hides from the police in a mansion where he meets the same woman from before. Seeing the same birthday picture, Raj realises that she is his school friend Rita. Rita tries to ask Raj how things have gone since schooldays, but he jokingly hints that he is a thief, and she decides not to ask further. Rita is now a ward of the Judge, who suspects that the new man in her life is no good. As Raj and Rita fall in love, he starts wanting to turn away from crime and worries that Rita will not accept him due to his lifestyle. Rita still tells him that she doesn't care about his past, as she loves him no matter where he comes from. Raj tries to quit his life of crime to work at a factory, but his employers fire him when they find out that he was a thief. Rita invites him to her birthday party, to the disapproval of the Judge, who believes that the impoverished Raj must come from a bad family. Remembering the humiliation he felt as a child when he could not afford a gift for Rita's birthday, Raj goes back to Jagga for a money loan. Jagga mocks his attempts to reform and asks him to commit more crimes. Raj refuses but ends up stealing a necklace from a man on the street, not knowing the man was the Judge. At Rita's birthday, when Raj gives her a necklace without a case and the Judge gives her a case without a necklace (he did not realise it had been stolen until then), she discovers that Raj is indeed a thief. Rita goes to Raj's mother and learns his whole life story. She decides that Raj is not bad, but was forced into committing crimes by bad influence and the desperation of living in poverty. Raj is ashamed, still believing he is no good for her, but she forgives him. Raj goes to the Judge to ask if he can marry Rita, but the Judge is still stubborn and turns him away. Meanwhile, Jagga and the gang commit the bank robbery, but it goes wrong and they have to run from the police. Jagga hides in Raj's house, where Leela recognizes him and he attacks her. Raj enters and fights him off, killing Jagga in self-defense. Raj goes on trial for Jagga's death, where Judge Raghunath is deciding the verdict. Rita persuades him that Raj acted in self- defense and is innocent. When Leela comes to the courthouse, she sees Raghunath and chases after him but is struck by a car. Rita collects the testimony from Leela in the hospital, and later Raj is allowed to visit her. Leela tells Raj that the Judge is his father and asks her son to forgive him. But Raj becomes angrier at the Judge for making him and his mother suffer. He escapes from jail and tries to kill the Judge for revenge, but is stopped by Rita. Due to these actions, Raj is brought to another court and is defended by Rita, who reveals the full truth to the court. Raj chooses not to defend his actions and says that he is a bad man. He asks the court not to think of him, but the millions of other children who grow up in poverty and end up turning to crime because high society does not care about them. While he awaits his execution, Raj is visited by Judge Raghunath, who finally accepts that Raj is his son and tearfully asks for forgiveness. In the end, Raj is spared execution but sentenced to 3 years in prison for his crime. He promises that after getting released, he will reform himself for Rita, who promises to wait for him. 

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Like the previous novel, Hammerhead Ranch Motel begins in media res, with two murders and one apparent suicide, the events leading up to which are eventually explored in the remainder of the novel. Serge A. Storms succeeds in tracking down the car with the briefcase containing $5 million in the trunk, and steals it while its drivers, Sean and David, have gotten out of the car to watch the progress of a wildfire. Later, he checks into the Hammerhead Ranch Motel in Tampa Bay to lay low, but his car is stolen by a trio of car thieves. The Motel's owner is a gangster named Zargoza (who legally changed his name from Harvey Fiddlebottom). Over the next few days, the briefcase changes hands several times, from the car thieves to the petty criminals who overheard the thieves bragging about finding it, to a pair of hapless college students hired by the thieves to drive their car across the state, to Zargoza's sometime-partners, the reckless Diaz Boys, and finally Zargoza himself. Several of these handlers are tracked down and killed, either by Serge or the Diaz Boys, but only Serge follows the trail to Zargoza. After determining that the briefcase is no longer in the trunk of the car, Serge drives it to the top of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, torches it with a Molotov cocktail, then leaps from the bridge with a parachute and dressed in a Santa Claus outfit (the act mistakenly seen as a suicide in the prologue). On the same night, one of the college students plunges to his death after being interrogated by the Diaz Boys, onto the glass roof of the Florida Aquarium. The gruesome nature of the recent deaths drives Zargoza nearly insane from paranoia, and he changes the hiding place of the briefcase several times. Deciding that a more subtle approach is required with Zargoza, Serge partners with a Don Johnson-impersonator named Lenny Lipowicz, who owns a real moon rock from a 1970s space mission. The two befriend Zargoza and the trio spend several weeks touring Florida tourist attractions, with Serge waiting for Zargoza to let slip where the briefcase is. Three subplots intersect with the main story and lead up to the novel's climax: *City and Country, two young women from Alabama, are on the run after a girl accidentally stabbed herself to death in their presence, with the steak knife she was snorting cocaine from. Believing themselves suspect in the woman's death, City and Country steal her car and flee to Florida, where they meet Serge and Lenny, quickly becoming addicted to Lenny's pot and Serge's bottomless supply of Florida history and trivia. *Aristotle "Art" Tweed is falsely diagnosed with a terminal illness (a practical joke by the bored teenage daughter of an employee at his local hospital) and, after meeting a Hemingway impersonator named Jethro Maddox, decides to redeem himself by killing the worst bully he can find. At first he targets "Boris the Hateful Piece of Sh**", a Tampa shock jock leading the public outcry in favor of Florida's newest anti-immigration legislation, but Serge kills Boris first after the latter's lewd advances against City and Country. Meanwhile, the hospital's insurer hires a private investigator named Paul to track down Art and inform him about the hoax. *The crew of an Air Force C-130 Hercules based at Keesler Air Force Base tracks the development and progress of Hurricane Rolando-berto in the Gulf of Mexico. The Air Force's attempt to liaise with the local media goes disastrously wrong when anchorman Blaine Crease, riding in the plane over the hurricane's eye, insists on pitching a cylindrical weather sensor out of an open hatchway while being filmed, which causes his network's beloved mascot, "Toto the Dancing Weatherdog" to leap after the "stick" and out the hatchway to plummet to his death. When the hurricane unexpectedly changes direction and makes landfall at Tampa, all the characters are trapped inside the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. Zargoza's "fall guy", a washed-up rock musician named C.C. Flag, believing that he's about to be arrested for his complicity in Zargoza's crimes, takes a young boy hostage, but Art saves the boy and both Flag and the local community's xenophobic mayor, Malcolm Kefauver, are blown out to sea by the hurricane. Serge and Zargoza finally confront each other over the money, but Zargoza is distracted when Jethro, whose participation in "The Flying Hemingway"'s skydiving stunt left him stranded in a tree, crashes through the Motel's roof. Country protects Serge by shooting Zargoza, who dies before Serge can convince him to confess where the money is hidden. Art learns the truth from Paul and is befriended by the attractive single mother of the boy whose life he saved. Watching the post-hurricane news, Serge sees the briefcase in the possession of Paul, leaving Tampa with Jethro, who happened to witness (from his tree perch) Zargoza hiding the briefcase for the last time. Serge frees Lenny from a local chain gang and, with City and Country in tow, takes off after the money once again. 

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The year is 1996. At long last, Serge A. Storms has been captured. He is committed to the psychiatric hospital at Chattahoochee, where he patiently tries to explain his views. Serge grows tired of this diversion, however, and escapes once more. His newest obsession involves investigating the circumstances surrounding his grandfather's death forty years earlier, when he allegedly committed suicide by wandering into the ocean at a Miami beach. Serge's grandfather, who passed on many of his habits and interests (as well as his mental instability) to his grandson, may have been involved with a lucrative jewel theft shortly before his disappearance, however, so his friends are understandably reluctant to talk. The novel then skips forward eight years and over the previous novels in the series to 2004, where Serge is living with his friend Lenny and Lenny's mother while planning a phantasmagoric array of projects, the biggest of which is still to solve the matter of his grandfather's supposed suicide. To finance his quest, Serge and Lenny start up a unique tour service highlighting the "lesser known" side of Florida's tourism industry. During one of his tours, a group of drunken convention attendees accidentally kidnap and kill a mob boss. The mobster in question just happens to be one that Serge personally insulted a few days earlier, incurring the wrath of both the mob and the FBI. Serge decides to keep close tabs on the salesmen for their own protection, not letting them leave his sight. Somehow, he also finds the time to publicly embarrass the Castro regime of Cuba and the United States government at the same time. Tagging along in Serge's deathmarch/tour are Lenny, a newspaper columnist from New York City, a friend of Serge's grandfather's named Chi Chi, and City and Country, a pair of dim-witted women that Serge ditched at the beginning of The Stingray Shuffle, in 1998. 

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The book takes place mainly in the Florida Keys, where Serge heads to "reinvent himself". After flirting with becoming the next Jimmy Buffett (undaunted by a total lack of musical talent), he finally decides to marry. All he has to do is find the right woman. Given Serge's personality (a mixture of bizarre topic-hopping as his attention drifts and his penchant for brutal honesty), this proves quite a challenge. And somehow, he's picked up a legion of devoted followers continually begging him for pearls of wisdom. After briefly courting a few unwilling prospects, he falls in love at first sight with Molly, a new hire at the local library. She initially seems to be stereotypically meek and prim, but is won over when she inadvertently watches Serge beat a man to death for insulting her. She agrees to his hastily scheduled wedding (held during an underwater concert) and quickly proves to be more than a match for Serge's formidable libido. He is quickly baffled by the intricacies of a "normal" relationship, however, and his bride resents all the time he spends with his dim-bulb pal Coleman. Arguments and cold silences follow. With all of this frustration, Serge barely notices the brown Duster following him or the repeated attempts on his life. Meanwhile, the regulars at the No Name Pub are vexed by Gaskin Fussels, an obnoxious rich loudmouth who flies down to the Keys every weekend to "whoop it up". They ignore him as best they can until Fussels, obliviously following a half-joking suggestion, steals and accidentally destroys a prized possession of the local viciously psychotic drug lord obsessed with the movie Scarface. Simultaneously, downtrodden waitress Anna discovers that her abusive husband has been murdered, along with her brother and his wife. She flees for her life, trying to decide whom to trust and how to free herself from the trouble in which she suddenly finds herself. She finds an ally, and later a lover, in Jerry, the desperate-to-be-liked bartender at the No Name Pub. Gus is a deputy in a small police station. Gus can't escape his mocking nickname of Serpico or the humiliations his ex-wife heaped on him, both of which his partner Walter is happy to mention. Suddenly the fax starts spitting out bulletins about possible serial killers headed their way and dangerous cars to be on the lookout for. A slimy ex-CEO, recently tried for improprieties that robbed thousands of people of their retirement funds (in an apparent reference to the Enron scandal), decides to spread a little "goodwill" around the Keys. But he is obviously buying people's support before announcing his plans to obscure some of Florida's most beautiful shoreline with condominiums. Legally, he should have lost nearly all his wealth, but thanks to the quasi-legal dealings of his equally slimy lawyers, he is still spending other people's money and living the good life. In the end, of course, very few people are who they seem and identities are unmasked as all the plot threads come crashing together. Molly is a serial killer even more deranged than Serge, Fussels is a fed investigating Jerry (who is actually "Scarface"), and Anna and Gus find themselves in possession of a solid gold boat anchor worth millions. 

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In the not-too-distant future, the Cold War threatens to turn into a fighting war. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind's only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the American government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment: Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, due to the project supervisors forgetting to enhance his brain's ability to process sensory input to cope with the new stimuli he is receiving, Roger Torraway becomes the heart of the program. To survive in the thin Martian atmosphere, Roger Torraway's body must be replaced with an artificial one. At every step he becomes more and more disconnected from humanity, unable to feel things in his new body. It is only after arriving on Mars that his new body begins to make sense to him. It is perfectly adapted to this new world and he becomes perfectly separated from his old world and from humanity. The success of the Martian mission spurs similar cyborg programs in other spacefaring nations. It is revealed that the computer networks of Earth have become sentient and that ensuring humanity's survival will guarantee theirs as well. In the end, the network is puzzled; something has distorted their extrapolations, the same way they influenced humanity. 

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The album's storyline is loosely based on the legend of Rennes- le-Château. It begins with a dirge-like monologue: "Upon the Cross he did not die, they tortured him, but he survived. Smuggled across the open sea, to Southern France, tranquility. There he married Magdalene, and founded another dynasty. A church was built upon a hill, to serve all of the gods at will." ("Upon the Cross") One night centuries later, a weary traveler becomes lost in the woods, in an area ominously called "The Devil's Hide," despite being familiar with the place. Unfortunately, he and his horse are soon surrounded by hungry wolves, watching from the forest ("The Trees Have Eyes"). Suddenly, a she-wolf with shining blue eyes appears, making all other wolves back away. Instinctively trusting this wolf, the traveler follows her to a small church at the bottom of a hill. Upon seeing it for the first time, the traveler notices a dark inscription on the door: "THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE." ("Follow the Wolf") The traveler enters the church, the titular House of God, in which everything starts to change from decrepitude to great opulence, full of food and drink. The wolf transforms into a beautiful woman and introduces herself as "Angel," promising to love the traveler forever. The traveler falls in love with Angel at first sight, and the two make love to each other frequently in the church ("House of God"). However, within days the traveler begins noticing small, odd behaviors from Angel, including her kissing a small, black statue of a sinister devil "sitting by the altar." He also mentions seeing two distinct pulpits, both depicting demonic images ("Black Devil"). Time passes. One day, while he is with Angel in the confession booth, she breaks down in tears and tells him her dramatic fate: a year prior to meeting the traveler, Angel was contracted by supernatural forces to guard the church; she reverts into her wolf form any time she leaves the grounds of the church and can only take human form within the building. Worse, Angel has one year to find a replacement for herself as guardian of the House of God. If she is successful, Angel will be freed from her contract and be permitted to leave the church as a normal woman once again, but with no memory of her time there. However, if she cannot find someone to take her place, she will die at the year's end, which will happen within one week. In sorrow, out of love for her the traveler signs the pact in order to save Angel's life, allowing her to be free even though she won't remember him ("The Pact", "Goodbye"). After her departure, the traveler nearly loses his mind out of heartache and isolation. The monotony of each day and the knowledge of being trapped for eternity unhinges him, and in his desperation he starts to destroy any mirror he can find around the church ("Just a Shadow", "Help!"). The traveler then witnesses the opening of a hidden trapdoor beneath the altar leading to the catacombs. Compelled by forces he cannot explain, the traveler descends ("Passage to Hell"). Following a mysterious light to a subterranean chamber, he encounters a crumbling statue of the Virgin Mary and breaks it open. Inside he discovers the mummified remains of a crucified, glowing corpse bearing "a crown of thorns." Hearing an unearthly roar, in horror the traveler realizes that this is the body of Jesus Christ and flees back up into the church ("Catacomb"). Upon his re-emergence, the traveler is followed by what he describes as a myriad of winds and lights; "contorted faces and bodies." Claiming to be unconcerned with living or dying anymore, the traveler questions these entities, who inform him that he has learned "the lie, the lie about the Cross." While they tauntingly will not reveal why they are keeping the corpse of Jesus, the Entities state that they are the forces behind the ideals of God and Satan. The Entities survive on the beliefs inspired by the eternal battle between Good and Evil, though the Entities themselves are far higher beings beyond these concepts. They advise the traveler to simply "live [his] life the best [he] can, and leave the rest to [the Entities]," but after these revelations he loses his faith completely and denounces God. Now knowing what he perceives to be the truth of the world, the traveler cannot accept what he has learned and hangs himself in desperation and pain. As he leaps, he yells out, "THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE," the inscription on the door of the House of God ("This Place is Terrible"). 

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The album opens at the end of the story, with the narrator giving a monologue as he is "hanging" from a wall, snow falling in the night outside. He reminisces about his life before his current predicament, giving small hints as to the horrors he was forced to witness and be subjected to ("Midnight"). The story shifts back eighteen years prior, to a nighttime puppet show in Budapest during Christmas. This particular puppet show is well known for both its life-sized, "grotesque" puppets, and the Puppet Master's inexplicable ability to make them dance without strings in the show's finale. The narrator, one of the audience members, is disturbed by the thought that one of the puppets, the Little Drummer Boy, looked at him as though it were "alive." He also notices the puppet is bleeding ("The Puppet Master"). At the conclusion of the show, the narrator meets Victoria, a young lady who shares his sentiments about the puppet show. The two feel that the show was "magic," which the narrator claims to also see in Victoria's eyes. The two talk and learn more about one another, culminating in the narrator kissing her. The couple begins a life together. However, a year later Victoria fails to return home after going to see another puppet show, and the fearful narrator sets out in the night to find her ("Magic"). In his search for Victoria, the narrator notices Emerencia, the Puppet Master's obese wife, emerge from the theater's cellar with a knife, a sack and a cart. Curious, he follows her. To his horror he witnesses Emerencia brutally murder a homeless man, taking his body back with her to the theater. She is careful not to let any blood spill from the corpse, keeping the knife inside her victim's body. Noticing that the door has remained open, the narrator attempts to follow Emerencia down into the cellar but is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant ("Emerencia"). The narrator awakens on the floor of the cellar, tied up and surrounded by puppets. His eyes adjusting to the dark, he comes to the realization that the puppets are indeed made from human bodies. Upon scrutinizing one of them, he is devastated to find that one of the puppets has the exact same blue eyes as his beloved Victoria, confirming his worst fears ("Blue Eyes"). The Puppet Master and Emerencia then enter the cellar and begin performing a demonic ritual to convert the narrator into another puppet. First, the Puppet Master speaks an incantation to subdue the narrator's mind, but the frightened narrator "kicks" a shelf, knocking down and breaking a jar, the contents of which are revealed to be human blood. This infuriates the Puppet Master, but the ritual continues. The narrator's soul is taken from him, while his eyes are given "eternal life" due to his untimely breaking of the blood-filled jar ("The Ritual"). He then finds himself strapped to a hospital bed for the second and final part of the ritual. The Puppet Master and his wife stand in front of him with a scalpel. The Puppet Master leans over him and says: "First your eyes... then your skin... we will make you feel born again," and starts to cut out his eyes. The Puppet Master uses an instrument to pull the eyeballs out of their sockets, cutting through the nerves holding the eyes in place. The Puppet Master then puts the eyeballs into a puppet's eye sockets, completing the work. The new puppet is placed on a shelf with the others, while the rest of the narrator's body is disposed of ("No More Me"). The narrator, in his new puppet form, can see and feel, but is otherwise unable to move and cannot sleep. He and Victoria, who is placed on a shelf across from him, can still "communicate with [their] eyes," questioning why they were subjected to this horror. The couple are given injections of blood, which gives them mobility under the Puppet Master's direction, who affectionately refers to them as his "children." After the injections successfully reanimate them for the first time, they are put back on their shelves in the cellar ("Blood to Walk"). The Puppet Master continues to train the narrator and Victoria for his upcoming puppet shows. The injections of blood last a maximum of an hour before their effects wear off; the narrator describes the hellish process as an unending cycle of living and dying, over and over. One night, the Puppet Master decides to try to have Victoria dance without strings, in spite of her fearful protests. As a result, Victoria knocks into the shelves of blood and breaks six of the jars. As punishment, the Puppet Master declares that she must be sent away to another puppet theater in Berlin ("Darkness"). The narrator is heartbroken, knowing he will lose Victoria again and is helpless to prevent it. The two converse for the final time as the narrator comforts her. In desperation, the narrator vows to find Victoria, and if he fails, he will be reunited with her in death. The couple declares their love for one another and they tearfully bid each other goodbye ("So Sad (Ghost's Song)"). The Puppet Master puts on his annual Christmas show, with the narrator starring as the new Little Drummer Boy. Without Victoria, the narrator is melancholic and desperate to escape his fate, even as he is forced to perform. In retaliation, he deliberately falls on the stage, breaking his drum and likely ruining the entire show ("Christmas"). Due to his actions during the Christmas performance, the narrator is sold to another shop, where his puppet body is pinned to the wall, a nail driven through its throat. The story returns to the present time, as the narrator describes how, in the eighteen years since he was sold, a rumor has spread that the Puppet Master's son and daughter will be opening a new puppet theater for children, describing how it will "be a bloody mess." The narrator's appearance frightens those who enter the shop, as they sense something amiss with him and notice his eyes following them. The album and story end as the narrator admits he has never found his beloved Victoria, sadly wondering where she is. Unknown to him, Victoria is heard wondering where he may be as well ("Living Dead"). 

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Shree 420 (full film) A country boy, Raj (Raj Kapoor), from Allahabad, travels to the big city, Bombay, by walking, to earn a living. He falls in love with the poor but virtuous Vidya (Nargis), but is soon seduced by the riches of a freewheeling and unethical lifestyle presented to him by an unscrupulous and dishonest businessman, Seth Sonachand Dharmanand (Nemo) and the sultry temptress Maya (Nadira). He eventually becomes a confidence trickster, or "420," who even cheats in card gambling. Vidya tries hard to make Raj a good man, but fails. Meanwhile, Sonachand comes up with a Ponzi scheme to exploit poor people, whereby he promises permanent homes to them at just Rs. 100. The scheme pays off, as people start hoarding money for a home, even at the cost of other important things. Vidya's contempt for Raj increases even more. Raj becomes wealthy but soon realizes that he paid a very high price for it. When Raj discovers that Sonachand has no plans to fulfill his promises, he decides to make wrongs right. Raj takes all the bond papers of the people's homes and tries to flee Sonachand's home, only to be caught by Sonachand and his cronies. In a scuffle that occurs, Sonachand shoots Raj and he falls unconscious. When people hear the shooting, they come and see Raj nearly dead. Sonachand tells police that Raj was trying to flee after stealing money from his safe, hence Sonachand shot him. Upon this, the "dead" Raj springs back to life, and using pure logic, proves Sonachand's guilt. Sonachand and his partners are arrested, while Vidya happily forgives Raj. The film ends with Raj saying "Yeh 420 Nahin, Shree 420 Hain" ("These are not simply con men, they are respectable con men"). 

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Krona, an exiled Oan, travels across the Multiverse and destroys universes seeking the truth of creation. When he arrives in the Marvel Universe, the Grandmaster—wanting to save his universe—proposes that they play a game. If Krona wins, the Grandmaster will lead him to Galactus, a being in that universe who has witnessed creation. If he loses, Krona has to spare the Grandmaster’s universe. Before choosing the players to participate in this game, Krona demands to swap champions, so the Avengers (the Grandmaster’s longtime adversaries) will represent Krona while and the Justice League (from Krona's home universe) will fight for the Grandmaster. This means that the Avengers must lose the game in order to save their universe. The Grandmaster informs the Justice League that to save their universe, they have to gather 12 items of power—six from each universe—while his ally Metron tells the Avengers that they have to do the same to prevent their world from being destroyed. The six items from the DC Universe are the Spear of Destiny; the Book of Eternity; the Orb of Ra; the Medusa Mask; the Bell, Jar and Wheel of the Demons Three; and the Green Lantern Power Battery of Kyle Rayner. The six items from the Marvel Universe are the Ultimate Nullifier; the Evil Eye of Avalon; the Wand of Watoomb; the Casket of Ancient Winters; the Cosmic Cube; and the Infinity Gauntlet. The Justice League travels to the Marvel Universe and are dismayed (especially Superman) by the Avengers' failure to improve their Earth's condition; for instance, the Flash (Wally West) encounters a non-human-looking mutant running away from an anti- mutant mob and the Flash protects him from the mob. Convinced that the Flash is a member of Magneto's Acolytes, the mob attacks him as well. The Flash also discovers that the Speed Force (the source of his powers) does not exist in this universe. When the Avengers visit the DC Universe, they are surprised by the "futuristic" architecture of its Earth's cities and the honors that the Justice League and other native heroes receive for their deeds. As a result, they (mainly Captain America) become convinced that the Justice League are fascists who demand that civilians hero-worship them. Various Justice League and Avengers members travel across the two universes and fight each other to retrieve the artifacts of power. A final battle for the Cosmic Cube takes place in the Marvel Universe’s Savage Land. After a climactic, back-and-forth battle, Quicksilver claims the Cosmic Cube. At that moment, Krona and the Grandmaster arrive on the scene, with the latter observing and commenting that the score is even at 6–6. However, Batman and Captain America—who together investigated the cause of the contest and discovered its true nature and stakes—arrive. Captain America purposely throws his shield and knocks the Cube from Quicksilver's hands, allowing Batman to catch it. With Captain America's forfeiture of the Cosmic Cube, the Grandmaster now announces the Justice League as the victors, with the final score now being 7–5. However, Krona is unwilling to accept defeat, and attacks the Grandmaster, forcing the identity of Galactus from him. He then summons Galactus and tries to extract information about the origin of the universe. The Grandmaster uses the power of the artifacts and merges both universes together before Krona can tear Galactus apart. Reality is altered such that the Justice League and the Avengers are now longtime allies, regularly traveling between worlds to fight various threats. In addition, long-dead JLA members the Flash (Barry Allen) and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) have reappeared. But the universes are incompatible with one another and begin destroying themselves and each other, with people switching between worlds. One side effect of this is that Superman and Captain America become paranoid, irritable, and short-tempered; their emotions flare to the point where they blame each other for everything that is happening (this is later explained as both heroes being too strongly synchronized to their native universes). The appearance of a spectral Krona helps the heroes remember some of the contest and they find out what is happening to their worlds. The Phantom Stranger appears to lead the heroes to the Grandmaster. Weakened by Krona's attack, the Grandmaster explains how he brought the universes together to imprison Krona using the 12 items, but Krona is merging the universes further in order to destroy them, hoping to create a new Big Bang, which he can survive and finally learn its mysteries. Before dying, the Grandmaster asks the assembled heroes to stop Krona and restore order. At Captain America's insistence, he reveals various events that had taken place in the separate universes to show the heroes what sorts of worlds they are fighting for. Each team member witnesses the tragedies that had befallen them in their separate universes, such as the death of Barry Allen, Hal Jordan's descent into evil, and the loss of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch's children. Some of the heroes contemplate leaving the universes as they are to prevent the tragedies from happening, but Hal Jordan inspires everyone to work for the good of their worlds. Krona has trapped the universal avatars of Eternity and Kismet as reality continues to change. He has discovered that a sentience exists in universes and intends to force their spirits out, giving him their secrets. Both teams of heroes reconcile their differences with one another and make plans to stop Krona. Invading Krona's inter-dimensional base, Captain America leads every hero who has ever been a member of the Justice League or the Avengers. Chronal chaos at the base causes an ever-shifting roster of heroes to confront every villain whom the teams have ever fought with the villains having been mentally enthralled by Krona. Even though the chaos and the sheer forces against them (both from Krona and the summoned villains) cause the heroes to fall one by one along the way, Krona is ultimately defeated when the Flash distracts him long enough for Hawkeye to shoot an explosive arrow into the machine he used to keep both worlds merged, after which the Flash takes the items of power—both heroes having been earlier presumed dead in battle. Krona is then sucked into the forming vortex. The Earths are separated with help from the Spectre (who at this time is Hal Jordan, now restored to his current state) and the universes are returned to their normal states. As the heroes from both universes return to their proper places, they affirm that whether they do too little or too much, they are still heroes who will always fight the good fight. Krona has imploded to form a cosmic egg, which is stored in the JLA Watchtower;JLA (vol. 3) #108-114 (Jan. - July 2005) Metron states that when the egg hatches, Krona will learn the secrets of its universe's creation by being part of it. Metron and the newly-resurrected Grandmaster discuss how Metron intentionally lured Krona to the Marvel Universe. The Grandmaster says that this is the first game that he has ever played where all sides won (the Grandmaster by way of the battle between the Justice Leaguers and Avengers, the heroes by saving their universes, and Krona by eventually gaining the answers that he sought). 

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Two god-like Brothers who personify the DC and Marvel Universes each become aware of the other's existence, and challenge one another to a series of duels involving each universe's respective superheroes. The losing universe would cease to exist. The story had an "out of universe" component in that the outcomes of the primary battles were determined by the readers' votes. Numerous smaller, story-driven skirmishes occur throughout the series, not counted with the primary duels meant to determine the outcome between the Brothers. There were 11 battles fought between the two universes. The result of the following six battles were determined by the miniseries' creative team: *Aquaman (DC) vs. Namor the Sub- Mariner (Marvel). Aquaman won by summoning a whale to leap out of the water and land on top of Namor. Since Namor is pinned and unable to move, he is declared the loser. *Elektra (Marvel) vs. Catwoman (DC). Elektra won by cutting off Catwoman's whip as she hung from a girder on a building under construction, but Catwoman survived by falling into a dumpster filled with sand. *The Flash (DC) vs. Quicksilver (Marvel). The Flash won using superior speed. *Robin (DC) vs. Jubilee (Marvel). Robin won by using his cape as a decoy and then tying up Jubilee. *The Silver Surfer (Marvel) vs. Green Lantern (DC). The Silver Surfer won when both collided with each other and released a huge explosion which knocked out Green Lantern, but left the Silver Surfer unfazed. *Thor (Marvel) vs. Captain Marvel (DC). Thor won when Captain Marvel was forced to change back to his alter ego of Billy Batson. Billy tried to change back, but Thor used Mjolnir to intercept the lightning bolt that would have transformed him back into Captain Marvel; the resulting impact knocked Billy out and sent Thor's hammer flying off into the distance. The result of the following five battles were determined by the readers' votes: *Superman (DC) vs. the Hulk (Marvel). After exchanging punches and a burst of heat vision, Superman won the fight eventually. *Spider-Man (Marvel) vs. Superboy (DC). With the advantage of his spider-sense, Spider-Man won by tying up Superboy with impact webbing and electrocuting him with high voltage, knocking him out. *Batman (DC) vs. Captain America (Marvel). The match ends in uncertainty - though both are evenly matched after hours of combat, a sudden flushing of the sewer knocks Captain America off balance as Batman manages to strike him with a batarang. Batman rescues Captain America from certain death via drowning, but Captain America's unconsciousness from nearly drowning causes him to lose. *Wolverine (Marvel) vs. Lobo (DC). Wolverine beats Lobo in a brutal barfight, which was largely off-panel. *Storm (Marvel) vs. Wonder Woman (DC). After Wonder Woman drops Thor's hammer in order to allow the fight to happen as it was intended to, Storm won the battle after repeatedly hitting Wonder Woman with lightning after a brief meleé encounter. Although the final victor of the fight is unknown, the new character of Access, a man capable of traversing between the two universes, infuses Batman and Captain America each with fragments of their respective universes before the Spectre and the Living Tribunal attempt to create a compromise by fusing the two universes together. This resulted in the creation of the Amalgam Universe, which sees various amalgamated versions of the heroes and villains acting as though they have been in existence for years. Access is eventually able to find the Dark Claw and Super-Soldier - versions of Batman and Captain America who have been 'amalgamated' with Wolverine and Superman, respectively - and use the fragments of the original universes in them to return the universes to normal. As the Brothers engage in direct battle, the Spectre and the Living Tribunal attempt to stop the conflict, but Batman and Captain America convince Access to take them to the conflict as well. Reading the minds of Batman and Captain America as they try to stop the fight, the Brothers realize that the two men are essentially the Brothers in miniature, each one unique among their worlds, but with no interest in the conflict that the Brothers have engaged in. Realizing the pointlessness of the conflict, the Brothers withdraw and congratulate each other, with both of them saying together "You've done well." 

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Mega Man X2 is set in an ambiguous year during the 22nd century ("21XX") in which the world is populated both by humans and mechanical beings known as "Reploids" (replicant androids). The mass-produced Reploids are based on a complex, humanoid robot dubbed Mega Man X (or simply "X") who was discovered by the archaeologist Dr. Cain in laboratory ruins many months earlier. Created with human-level intelligence and free will, some Reploids have a tendency towards destructive, criminal activity and are subsequently dubbed "Mavericks" by the government. A military force called the "Maverick Hunters" is formed to halt or prevent such activity. The events of the first Mega Man X game entail the hunter X's fight to stop Sigma, a Maverick overlord bent on the destruction of humanity. X prevails in his mission, but at the cost of his partner Zero's life. Six months following the incident, X becomes the head of the Maverick Hunters. X tracks a "manufactured Maverick" bearing Sigma's emblem to a Reploid factory, where he launches a full assault. However, despite Sigma's apparent death and X's recent efforts, the Maverick rebellion continues. Three powerful Mavericks—Serges, Agile, and Violen—form a group called the "X-Hunters" and gain control of the North Pole. In the time between Sigma's demise and the trio's sudden uprising, Serges has collected the deceased Zero's bodyparts. After the factory mission, X is assigned to seek and exterminate eight Maverick leaders on a large continent directly south of the North Pole. The X-Hunters contact the Maverick Hunters shortly thereafter and taunt them with Zero's body. The X-Hunters drift among the eight Maverick locations and attempt to lure X out, each one promising the protagonist a piece of Zero if he can defeat them. The story deviates slightly depending on whether or not the player collects all three of Zero's parts before heading to the X-Hunter fortification in the North Pole. If the player gathers all the parts, Dr. Cain states he will attempt to reassemble and reactivate Zero using his original control chip. If the player does not succeed, X is informed by Dr. Cain that the X-Hunters have attacked Maverick Hunter headquarters and stolen any collected parts and the control chip. Just as X annihilates the last of the X-Hunters, Sigma reveals himself to have been behind the plot. X leaves the exploding compound and tracks Sigma to the Central Computer, one of the eight locations he visited earlier. If the player fails to collect all of Zero's parts, X finds both Sigma and the newly rebuilt Zero waiting for him halfway through the stage. X must then beat Zero in combat. If the player does manage to collect all of the parts, a gray-armored clone of Zero accompanies Sigma instead; the real Zero then appears at X's side and destroys the clone. The outcome of either event has Sigma retreating and Zero creating a passageway in the floor to allow X pursuit. After X defeats Sigma, he reveals to X that his true form exists as a computer virus, and taunts to X that he will return. However, Sigma questions Zero's allegiance with humans, stating that Zero is "the last of the Doctor's creations". X evacuates the facility to rendezvous with Zero outside, and the two watch as the facility self-destructs. 

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Bob Morlock, a biomechanical mastermind, is the founder of a massive company called Kanary. Thanks to scientific advances, Morlock is the oldest being in existence. Knowing his time in this universe is nearing an end, he would like to see the Big Bang and the beginning of the universe. Kanary's Clone Consortium branch builds Commander Blood in order to help Morlock achieve his goal. Commander Blood is placed on a high-tech ship, the Ark, and aided by Honk, Blood's onboard computer personality; the ORXX, Blood's biomechanical 'clone'; Olga, Blood's onboard translator; a radio, television set; and other technology. 

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Colonel Flynn O'Flynn (Lee Marvin), a hard-drinking American, manipulates British aristocrat Sebastian Oldsmith (Roger Moore) into helping poach ivory in Tanganyika, which is part of the German-controlled pre-World War I territory of German East Africa. On hearing news that the American has returned, Herman Fleischer, the local German Commander of the Southern Provinces, relentlessly hunts O'Flynn with his Schutztruppen (colonial troops). Later Sebastian meets and falls in love with O'Flynn's daughter, Rosa (Barbara Parkins). They are married and have a daughter together. Meanwhile, the poaching continues. Fleischer has his warship ram and sink O'Flynn's Arab dhow loaded with poached ivory. Later, while attacking O'Flynn's home, Schutztruppe under Fleischer's command kill Sebastian's daughter Maria. O'Flynn and Sebastian decide to go and kill Fleischer as revenge for the death of the little girl. But when it is discovered that Britain is at war with Germany, allied officers convince O'Flynn to locate and destroy the German warship awaiting repair. O'Flynn, Sebastian, and Rosa pursue Fleischer, who happens to be on the warship. Eventually they find her in an inlet and plant a bomb on board. O'Flynn sacrifices himself so that Sebastian and Rosa can escape while Fleischer's crew search for the bomb. Fleischer jumps overboard just in time to get away also, but as he comes ashore, Sebastian kills him with a rifle. Sebastian and Rosa then watch the ship as it is ripped apart by more explosions and burns. 

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The story starts in London right after World War I. The characters have to deal with the lack of values and stability brought by the terrible conflict. Everybody is lost but at the same time looking for happiness while everything is going out of control in a ridiculous and comic way. 

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Jim Ellison was a US Army Ranger who spent 18 months in the Peruvian jungle after the rest of his unit was killed. He developed hyperacute senses from surviving in the wild, but repressed them when he returned to civilization. His sensory abilities re-manifested five years later, while conducting an extended stakeout in the forest as a detective in the Major Crimes Unit of the Cascade, Washington, police department. He went to a hospital for an examination where he met Blair Sandburg, an anthropologist from Rainier University, whom Ellison initially mistook for a physician. Upon hearing Ellison's story, Sandburg declares that Ellison is a "Sentinel": in ancient tribes, Sentinels used their enhanced senses to protect their village. For Jim, Cascade is his village. Blair had been studying Sentinel mythology for years. While he found many individuals with one or two hyperactive senses, he had never before found a person with all five senses enhanced, a "true" Sentinel. Blair helps Jim control his senses and joins Jim as a police observer. Their unlikely partnership works, and together they fight crime in the streets of Cascade. The only person aside from Sandburg who knows Jim's secret is his captain and friend, Simon Banks. 

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After watching Cirque Du Cheville (a "Cirque du Soleil" parody) and liking the performance of quintuplets from the show in particular, the boys hope to make a new performance artist style circus. The boys, however, think Kenny needs to learn how to sing first. Meanwhile, the Romanian contorting quintuplets from the show, along with their grandmother, try to escape from the Romanian government hoping to bring them back. The five end up at the Marsh house, asking for shelter. Meanwhile, Kenny learns to sing through opera tapes (namely "Con te partirò") . At the Marsh house, Grandpa Marsh and the quints' grandmother (using her own contortion skills) have sex. The next morning, a shocked Randy finds the grandmother dead (after a night with Grandpa Marsh). After telling the quints, and with some persuasion from Cartman, Stan, and Kyle (who hope to use the quints for their circus, in which their performance is to do some contortions wearing only underpants with the Quints doing their performance), Stan's parents let the quints stay with them. The boys then decide to show the quints how great America is, taking them to, among other things, a sheep-shearing contest and a shopping mall, hoping they'll stay and do their circus. Meanwhile, the Romanian government seek Janet Reno to help get the quints back. Also, seeking to get to Romania for singing training, Kenny sings the aria "La donna è mobile" from Verdi's Rigoletto for money in order to acquire transport for him and his mother. In Romania, Kenny proves to be a sensational singer, and, after his mother realizes that the small amount of money that she brought from the US provides them with two months of food and housing due to the massive cost of living difference between Romania and the United States, the two decide to stay. Back in the US, the Marsh house is surrounded by protesters, hoping to let the quints stay. Reno dresses as the Easter Bunny and armed with a gun and an Easter Egg-shaped tear gas canister, captures the quints. Stan, Kyle and Cartman, who don't want to lose their circus, enlist the help of the protesters outside to get the quints back. A large amount of violence starts between the protesters and government soldiers, which is stopped by the quints after they tell off all the groups on their shortcomings: their father for acting like he missed them when he in fact walked out on them five years ago, the Romanian Leaders for caring nothing about them and only wanted to make America look stupid, the protesters for having nothing better to do, and the boys (whom they consider the worst of all) for their ignorance about Romanian culture, arrogant assumptions about America's superiority, and only wanting to use the girls to perform in their circus. They then get in Oprah Winfrey's limousine for an upcoming press tour. The Border Patrol raid during the Elián González affair is referenced in "Quintuplets 2000," which aired within the same week the event occurred. Meanwhile, the exact opposite of the quints' situation is occurring with Kenny in Romania. With Romanians protesting outside his house to let him stay, American soldiers invade the house and Kenny is inadvertently killed by the U.S. government, who had hoped to bring him back alive. 

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After escaping from a military prison, rogue Air Force General Lawrence Dell and accomplices Powell, Garvas, and Hoxey infiltrate a Montana ICBM complex that Dell helped design. Their goal is to gain control over its nine Titan nuclear missiles. The infiltration does not go as planned, as the impulsive Hoxey guns down an Air Force guard for trying to answer a ringing phone. Dell then shoots and kills Hoxey. The three then make direct contact with the US government (avoiding any media attention) and demand a $10 million ransom and that the President go on national television and make public the contents of a top-secret document. The document, which is unknown to the current president but not to certain members of his cabinet, contains conclusive proof that the US government knew there was no realistic hope of winning the Vietnam War but continued fighting for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the Soviet Union their unwavering commitment to defeating Communism. Meanwhile, Dell and his two remaining men remove the security countermeasures to the launch control system and gain full control over the complex. While the President and his Cabinet debate the practical, personal, and ethical aspects of agreeing to the demands, they also authorize the military to send an elite team led by General MacKenzie to penetrate the ICBM complex and incinerate its command center with a low-yield tactical nuclear device. Just as the device is about to be set, the commando team accidentally trips an alarm, alerting Dell to their operation. A furious Dell responds by initiating the launch sequence for all nine missiles. As the military and President Stevens watch the underground missile silo launch covers begin to open, they agree to call off the attempt and the launch is aborted with mere seconds to spare. During this time, the captive Air Force guards attempt to overpower Dell and his men, resulting in the death of Garvas and another guard. Eventually, the President agrees to meet the demands, which include allowing himself to be taken hostage and used as a human shield while Dell and Powell make their escape from the complex. As the president leaves the White House, he asks the Secretary of Defense to release the document should he be killed in the process. US Air Force snipers take aim and shoot both Dell and Powell, but also accidentally shoot the President, who with his dying breath asks the Secretary of Defense if he will release the document. The Secretary cannot bring himself to answer. 

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Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson) and Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado) are two teenage girls who meet in the New York Neurological Hospital, where they're both being examined for mental illness. Pamela is depressed and insecure, and she's neglected and exploited by her father, David Pearl (Peter Coffield), a prominent and wealthy commissioner running a campaign to "clean up" Times Square. Nicky is a tough-talking street kid with musical aspirations, sent to the hospital for an evaluation after an altercation with police. Sharing a room, the brash Nicky and shy Pamela become friends. Nicky admires Pamela's poetic spirit; Pamela admires Nicky's forthright attitude and resents the condescending way in which the doctors treat her. Nicky is released from the hospital and later returns, ostensibly for an appointment with her social worker, Rosie Washington (Anna Maria Horsford), but really to break Pamela out. Both girls escape the hospital, steal an ambulance, and hide out in abandoned warehouse on the Chelsea Piers, making a pact to scream out each other's names in times of trouble. There is a citywide search for Pamela after David reports her missing and accuses Nicky of kidnapping her, claiming Pamela needs medical attention. Meanwhile, the girls try to eke out a living by engaging in card games, petty theft, odd jobs, and scavenging. Radio disc jockey Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry), who broadcasts from a penthouse studio overlooking Times Square, realizes that David's missing daughter is the same "Zombie Girl" who sent him letters, telling him how sad and insecure she feels. LaGuardia, who resents David's "Reclaim Rebuild Restore" campaign to gentrify Times Square, uses his radio station, WJAD, to reach out to Nicky and Pamela. The girls start writing songs together and form an underground punk rock band, The Sleez Sisters, with the help of LaGuardia, who sees them as an opportunity to undermine David. When an open letter to Pamela from Rosie is printed in the newspaper (with the help of David), calling Nicky troubled and dangerous, the girls perform a defiant Sleez Sisters song live on WJAD, making them even more famous. As an act of further rebellion, Nicky and Pamela also throw TVs off a series of rooftops in the city. The two eventually have a falling out when they realize that their lives are on divergent paths. Pamela is content with her newfound sense of identity and wants to return home. Nicky wants to continue with The Sleez Sisters and becomes jealous of Pamela's relationship with LaGuardia. One night, she accuses LaGuardia of exploiting Pamela and herself, and throws them both out of the warehouse hideout. She then has a breakdown, wrecking her home and destroying the journal she shared with Pamela. After a failed attempt to drown herself, she drunkenly breaks into WJAD and demands that LaGuardia put her on the air (though, unbeknownst to Nicky, he never does). Midway through her song, Nicky breaks down and asks Pamela for help, shouting out her name. A sympathetic LaGuardia takes Pamela to Nicky. Pamela, breaking ties with LaGuardia, then takes Nicky to David's office, located in the middle of Times Square. Pamela calls all the local radio stations, announcing an impromptu, and illegal, midnight show in Times Square, on the rooftop of a 42nd Street grindhouse. A message is sent out to the fans of The Sleez Sisters, inviting them to attend the concert. Nicky says, "If they treat you like garbage, put on a garbage bag. If they treat you like a bandit, black out your eyes!" Girls across the city heed Nicky's call and board buses and subways to converge in Times Square. In a garbage-bag costume and bandit-mask-style makeup, Nicky sings on the marquee roof above a crowd of cheering fans, also in garbage bags with "bandit" makeup. With the police approaching from behind, Nicky jumps off the edge of the marquee and into a blanket held taut by a group of fans. Camouflaged in the crowd, Nicky manages to evade capture by the police. Pamela watches her friend vanish into the night. 

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Harvard educated Dr. David Lowell's (Collins) research is carried out in the canyon country of southern Utah and must be conducted at the same time Halley's Comet is passing over the earth. Lowell is trying to find a safe, cheap energy source. Lowell leased the land from the Pilgrim Corporation. However, the Pilgrim Corporation decides the same canyon would be better used as a remote place to illegally dump nuclear waste. Pilgrim's CEO (Nicholas Pryor) arranges for Lowell to be thrown off his land and destroys his laboratory. Lowell spends the rest of the film committing sabotage against the company and trying to recover his land, assisted by the daughter of Pilgrim's CEO (Janet Julian) as well as unlikely help from a hit-man sympathetic to Lowell's cause (Bo Svenson). Brook Alistair (Lance Henriksen), hired by the Pilgrim Corporation attempts to stop Lowell. 

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High school outcast Marty Rantzen is seduced by popular girl Carol in the women's locker room. This is revealed as a prank as several students appear and mock Marty's naked body. Led by troublemaker Skip, the students physically abuse Marty before the coach intervenes. Later, two of the students feign remorse and offer Marty marijuana laced with something to make him sick. Skip messes with Marty's science project, accidentally setting off a chain of events that ends with Marty being doused with nitric acid, disfiguring him. Ten years later Carol meets Skip and the others at their high school reunion. They find they were the only ones invited, with the school long vacant and in disrepair. They decide to break in and party, and unbeknownst to them the school's caretaker is killed by a man wearing a jester mask. Soon the friends begin dying in variety of ways – Ted's stomach explodes upon drinking an acid-laced beer, Shirley is melted with acid while taking a bath, Carl is impaled while trying to escape in a car, Susan is killed off- screen, Joe is eviscerated by tractor blades, Stella and Frank are electrocuted while having sex, and Nancy is drowned in a cesspit. Skip is hanged by a noose but escapes. The jester chases Carol throughout the school, and in her panic she accidentally kills Skip with an axe to the face. Finally the jester kills Carol with a javelin in the locker room where the initial prank took place. Removing his mask, the jester is revealed as Marty, who revels in his revenge before he hallucinates and gets attacked by the spirits of the people he just slaughtered and passes out. Someone must of found Marty while Demolition thinking he was a Victim to the Massacre, Marty wakes up in the hospital. A doctor remarks that Marty's skin grafting has been a success. However, Marty kills the doctor and a nurse before ripping the new skin from his face. 

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After a series of Amazonian Indian attacks on U.S. owned petroleum installations in Brazil, both governments start a secret 'special program'. In fact colonel Ezekial's men use genetically modified killer bees to eradicate the tribes. During an Indian attack, reporter Ann Bauer is stung yet survives due to a mysterious rescue. Dr. Stephen North realizes the venom has priceless healing powers and smuggles the bees aboard a flight to New York. Also on board are Bauer, her nearly divorced husband, Martin, and her friend, U.S. State Department project representative, Scotty. They face potential mass-killing after turbulence releases the bees inside the plane. 

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This is the story of a raven, considered by ornithologists to be the most intelligent of birds, who through its antics disrupts a family, even to causing enough problems that the town finally decides to put the bird on trial for its life. The tale is told in retrospect during that trial by the young girl who owns it. 

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For the past 33 years Jeremiah Hill (Roger Hewlett) has lived alone, with no contact with the outside world, and he intends to keep it that way. Jeremiah's mother (Tracy Scoggins) had always warned him not to associate with the outside world, and her brutal rape and killing right before his eyes taught him a lesson he intends never to forget; and those who enter his world will pay a deadly price. As Lehman (Mario Lopez) and his five friends from Los Angeles start their weekend camping trip they run into Tyler Trout (Gary Busey) and Floyd Fryed (Rance Howard) who represent the gateway into this distorted world that they are about to enter. These things just don't happen in the small mountain town of Sheriff Talmidge (Bo Hopkins) and Deputy Kevin Gordon (Stephen Saux). By stumbling upon this lonely cabin in the woods, the men have shattered 33 years of solitude in Jeremiah's world. Soon their weekend trip of hiking and camping will become a nightmare of survival. 

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In a 1950s American suburb, young Gregory Tudor witnesses his local ice cream man, known as the "Ice Cream King," murdered in a drive-by shooting. In the present, Gregory has taken over the "King's" business, calling himself the Ice Cream Prince, and using the man's truck and ice cream parlor. Unbeknownst to the public, Gregory is putting gruesome ingredients in his ice cream such as insects, blood, and body parts, and is using the dilapidated ice cream parlor as a sort of laboratory in which he produces his concoctions. One night, Gregory kills a dog belonging to Nurse Wharton—his landlord and one of the orderlies who treated him for his childhood trauma. The same night, Roger, a boy from the neighborhood, goes missing. The other children, having witnessed Gregory's creepy personality, suspect him of kidnapping Roger, but the police and Nurse Wharton do not. The kids, Johnny, Heather, and Tuna, agree to gang up and search for Roger themselves. Soon after, another boy known as Small Paul disappears. The kids are initially unable to prove that Gregory is dangerous, and the police persist in not believing them. Gregory has recurring flashbacks to his abusive treatment at the Wishing Well Sanatorium, and obsessively idolizes the Ice Cream King, visiting the man's grave at odd hours of the night. As the kids dig deeper, it is revealed that Gregory really did kidnap Roger and Small Paul, and is keeping them in a cage at the ice cream parlor. However, Small Paul shows a macabre interest in Gregory's experiments, and so Gregory takes him under his wing. Two detectives investigate the Wishing Well, which turns out to be an unregulated free-for-all; the unstable patients roam freely and cause chaos, while the doctors and administrators are insane themselves. The police now believe the children regarding Gregory's craziness, and prepare to search for Roger and Small Paul at the ice cream parlor. When Gregory kidnaps Tuna, Heather enlists the help of her older brother Jacob to investigate the parlor, but Jacob is killed by Gregory, who also kills Jacob's girlfriend and frightens Heather and Johnny into running around the property. Gregory outsmarts the two cops and knocks them unconscious. By holding a photo of the Ice Cream King over his face, Small Paul causes Gregory to walk into a trap that pulls him into the main ice cream mixer, where Gregory is dismembered by the razor-sharp mixing blade. Roger and Tuna are reunited with their friends, who mention that Small Paul has been sent to therapy. A closing shot shows Small Paul sitting alone in a darkened room, silently churning a bucket of ice cream, his face twisted into an evil leer just like Gregory's. 

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;Prologue A creepy- looking coroner introduces three different horror tales involving his current work on cadavers in "body bags". 

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When Davros is revived and asked by the head of an Earth corporation to use his great genius to work for good ends, the Kaled scientist seems to be playing along. The Sixth Doctor arrives and insists that Davros cannot be trusted, that he is "one of – no, actually, the most evil being this galaxy has ever produced!" Forced however to work alongside his nemesis, on projects such as famine relief, the Doctor seeks to uncover Davros before he can put new schemes to create a powerbase into effect. 

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To Heart 2 story revolves around the male protagonist Takaaki Kouno, a high school student who has an aversion to most girls around him, and focuses on his interactions with his schoolmates. The story begins on March 1, 2004, when Takaaki's parents leave for an overseas business trip.Untranslated quote: 「……あ、そうか。今日から親父もお袋も出張で家を留守にするから、誰もいないんだった。」 Translated quote: "...oh, that's right. Because both Dad and Mom left for a business trip today, nobody is home." That morning, Konomi Yuzuhara, Takaaki's childhood friend, comes to meet Takaaki for their commute to school. Konomi is a cheerful and innocent, but childish girl. She is one year younger than Takaaki, who often views her as a younger sister.Untranslated quote: 「一人っ子だった俺にとっては、妹みたいなものかな。」 Translated quote: "As I am an only child, [Konomi] is something like a sister to me." The two are also friends with Yuuji Kousaka, who is in the same class as Takaaki. Despite being the son of a wealthy and prestigious family, Yuuji has a frivolous and carefree personality, and often flirts with the girls at school. Takaaki later reunites with Tamaki Kousaka, another childhood friend, who had promised to return before being enrolled into a boarding school. Tamaki has a strong and dominant personality, and tends to act as an elder sister figure to those around her. She later transfers into Takaaki's high school upon the beginning of the new school year. Throughout the story, Takaaki meets several other heroines attending his school. The first is Manaka Komaki, a timid, clumsy, but accommodating girl who is the vice class representative of Takaaki's class. She often spends time in the school library's storage, and helps the library committee with general tasks. Similar to Takaaki, she is inarticulate around the opposite gender. Manaka is also close friends with Yuma Tonami, an aggressive girl who commutes to school by a mountain bike. Yuma sees Takaaki as a rival after she first met him at school, and often challenges him to various duels. She often laments her grandfather's insistence of having her take over the family business, and attempts to hide her family background from Takaaki. Karin Sasamori is a schoolmate of Takaaki's and the founder of the school's mystery club. Karin has a cheerful and energetic personality, and has an odd affection towards the occult and objects such as egg sandwiches. She first meets Takaaki early in the story, and later deceives him into joining the mystery club. Sango Himeyuri is an underclassman who takes a liking to Takaaki. She is lively and innocent, but also intelligent. She is in particular proficient in computer-related subjects, and designed multiple humanoid maid robots as an engineer for Kurusugawa Electronics. Ruri Himeyuri is another underclassman of Takaaki and Sango's younger twin sister. In contrast to her older sister, Ruri has a bad- mouthed and hostile personality. She is very protective of Sango, and often regards Takaaki's interactions with her in bad faith. Lucy Maria Misora is a girl whom Takaaki meets one day on his way home. She has a calm personality and opens up to very few people except him. Lucy claims to be an alien, and speaks a unique language she calls the . She later attends Takaaki's school under the name Rūko Kireinasora. Yūki Kusakabe is a gentle and well-mannered girl who often lingers in the school building at night. She was one of Takaaki's classmates in elementary school, but has since transferred away because of her parents' divorce. Two heroines were subsequently added to To Heart 2 story in later versions of the game. Sasara Kusugawa becomes the student council president of Takaaki's school during his second year. She inherits her position from the previous president Ma-ryan, as she is the only remaining student council member after the latter's graduation. Sasara is very diligent, often completing all of the student council's tasks by herself. She is often feared by students for her strict attitude, but is actually disguising a shy and gentle personality. Mio Hanesaki is Takaaki's classmate. She remains largely unnoticed by other students, most of whom remain oblivious of her name. She originally ties her hair up and wears eyeglasses, but later wears contact lens and her hair untied as an attempt by Takaaki to change the impression she gives to others. 

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The Deep Blue Good-by introduces readers to McGee, his place of residence, the Busted Flush (a houseboat he won in a poker game), and its mooring place, slip F-18 at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the early chapters we learn that McGee is a bachelor, a man who can be friends with ladies as well as have a passion for them, and a man of principle (although they are somewhat at the mercy of his uncertain emotional condition and his circumstances at the moment; in McGee's own words, "Some of them I'll bend way, way, over, but not break."). Another feature of the McGee series is the seemingly unending parade of colorful and invariably evil villains whom McGee must contend with in order to make a recovery for his clients. In this first story the antagonist is Junior Allen, a smiling, seemingly friendly man, large, "cat quick", powerful, and pathologically evil. The story begins with a fortune smuggled home after World War II by a soldier who was a native of the Florida Keys. This soldier killed another soldier just prior to his discharge, went on the run back to the Keys, and buried his treasure there. He was later captured by the U.S. Army and sent to a military prison, where he met Junior Allen. Allen discovered vague details about the fortune hidden in the Keys and after his release from prison went there to find it. The story depicts the psychotic behavior of Allen as he evolves from thief to serial rapist to murderer. We see McGee's savvy, guile, and physical prowess as he works methodically to locate Allen and eventually make the recovery. As is thematic in many of the McGee books, however, he pays a heavy price for the successful recovery. Throughout the series, in fact, it is debatable as to whether McGee ever makes a recovery in which the gain outweighs the costs. The "Deep Blue Good-by" occurs when some of the blue gem stones that McGee is trying to recover are spilled on a boat during a scuffle with Junior Allen and fall to the bottom of the ocean. The title phrase is not used in this book, although all of the book phrases are used starting in his third book, "A Purple Place for Dying." In the end, Travis McGee recovered five gem stones for about $22,668. McGee took $1,668 for expenses and $1,000 as a recovery fee from Cathy Kerr. 

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Rhino, a brutish and dimwitted enemy of Spider-Man, suffers a mid-life crisis after he attempts to rescue Stella, the beautiful daughter of a mob boss, who coldly informs him after he is hired as a full- time bodyguard on the grounds that he is too stupid to be a serious romantic or business threat. Recalling a recent meeting with the doctors who created his latest suit, he undergoes a brain operation that turns him into a super genius. With his new intellect, he quickly demonstrates a change in his usual methods, allowing him to defeat Spider-Man, subsequently running away with Stella to start his own crime organization. With his new intellect, he writes a novel, gets a restraining order that prevents Spider-Man from attacking him, sets up a crime syndicate (with the aid of such other criminals as the Mad Thinker, after breaking them out of prison), and even rewrites Hamlet. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of making the subject so intelligent that he is no longer able to fully enjoy life, with Rhino driving Stella away because he finds her too dimwitted to attract his attention. Finally reaching a point where he finds no real meaning in life, Rhino hands Spider-Man, having deduced his identity via an equation he developed that allows him to calculate the secret identities of superheroes, information with which he can bring down Rhino's crime empire. He nearly commits suicide, but at the last minute he comes up with a means of reversing the original operation and restoring his original intellect, even requesting that he be made "a bit stupider than before". He is soon restored to his former stupid but happy self, delightedly crashing through walls. 

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Brothers Mansoor and Sarmad are two successful singers from Lahore. Sarmad eventually is influenced by an Islamic activist Maulana Tahiri, as he begins to practice a more conservative Islamic way of living and gives up his music career as it is considered "haram" by the Islamic activist. Maryam (Mary), a westernised British Pakistani girl, falls in love with Dave from the British community. However this displeases her father, who is hypocritical, despite himself being in a live-in relationship with a British woman. Meanwhile, Mary's father plans to take her for a trip to Pakistan to meet Sarmad and Mansoor. During the visit, she is deceived by her father and taken across the border to Afghanistan under the guise of attending a relative's wedding. In Afghanistan, she is forcefully married off to her cousin Sarmad and abandoned in their household. In an escape attempt, Mary tries to run from the village but gets caught by Sarmad. He eventually consummates their marriage by force as a sort of punishment so that Mary would not escape again. Mansoor goes to a musical school in Chicago, where he meets fellow music student Janie. They fall in love with each other and Janie stops drinking alcohol for him. They eventually marry. However, shortly after the events of 9/11, Mansoor gets arrested by the FBI due to his Islamic background and is detained and tortured for a year in Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Mary is rescued by Sarmad's father under the protection of the British government. A devastated Mary takes her father and cousin to court in Pakistan for justice. Wali (Naseeruddin Shah), a Maulana, then explains to the court how Islam is being misused in the name of war and hatred, bringing the religion forward in a believable and peaceful manner. Traumatised by all the suffering he has seen and caused, Sarmad withdraws the case. He also realizes the damage that he was made to inflict in the name of religion. Mary is now free and returns to the village where she was kept prisoner so she can educate the girls there. Meanwhile, Mansoor is still in FBI custody after a year of torment; the last torture session having inflicted permanent brain damage. After a failed rehab attempt, he is deported and reunited with his family in Pakistan where he begins to recover. 

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The story of Mega Man X3 is set during the 22nd century (the year "21XX"), in which after Mega Man X2 humans coexist with intelligent robots called "Reploids" (replicant androids). Due to their free will, some Reploids are prone to criminal activity and are said to go "Maverick". Dr. Cain, the inventor of the Reploids, establishes a military taskforce called the "Maverick Hunters" to prevent it. Even after two successful efforts by the Hunters Mega Man X and Zero to stop a Maverick leader named Sigma from attempting to exterminate the human race, Maverick activity seems to continue. However, the threat of the Mavericks is later neutralized thanks to the technology of the Reploid scientist Dr. Doppler, which prevents the Mavericks from going berserk. The reformed Reploids form a utopia near their new mentor called "Dopple Town". It seemed that all is well until the former Reploids suddenly revert and once again begin causing trouble, even going so far as to attack Hunter headquarters. Doppler is held accountable, and X and Zero are sent out to contain the new threat. Once the two heroes defeat Doppler and the forces that have sworn allegiance to him, the scientist comes to his senses and realizes all the damage that he has done. He explains that Sigma is alive as a computer virus, and that Doppler was corrupted in order to create a new body for Sigma. X seeks out Sigma, and after an intense battle, the Sigma Virus in its pure form chases X in an attempt to infect and possess him. Once X finds himself at a dead end, one of two things may happen. In one of the game's endings, Zero takes Doppler's true antivirus software and uploads it onto his sabre offscreen. He rushes in to save X just in time and causes Sigma to explode, destroying the lab as they evacuate. However, if Zero is injured during the game, Doppler instead uses his own body as the antivirus and sacrifices himself for the greater good. 

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Simran Sehgal (Mallika Sherawat) is a young woman married to Sudhir (Ashmit Patel), a workaholic, who was previously married to Simran's now deceased sister, Sonia. Simran only married Sudhir in order to give motherly love to Sudhir and Sonia's son. She leads an unhappy, lonely and passionless married life. After accidentally meeting her former college lover, Sunny (Emraan Hashmi), she decides to engage in an affair with him. The affair starts to consume her life and Simran finds herself constantly lying to her husband and neglecting her motherly duties. After some time, she decides to end the relationship, but to her surprise, she finds that Sunny has also been simultaneously seeing another woman named Radhika. She regrets her unfaithful act and tries to cut all ties with Sunny. Meanwhile, Sudhir has started to have doubts about his wife, and hires a detective to trace Simran's whereabouts. The detective is able to provide Sudhir with pictures of Sunny and Simran having sex and sleeping together tells him that Sunny is a serial womanizer, and had find with many girlfriends. The next day, Sunny suddenly goes missing. The police come to Sudhir and Simran's house and inquire about him, on a report registered by his girlfriend Radhika. Simran comes across the photographs of her and Sunny amongst Sudhir's things, and realizes that he may have something to do with Sunny's disappearance. Sudhir reveals that he went to Sunny's apartment to confront him about the affair, and the two men began to argue. The situation escalated, and Sudhir fatally beat Sunny and buried him in a panic. Realising her fault and role in the situation, Simran supports Sudhir and takes the blame for killing Sunny. This develops and strengthens their love and faith in each other. Simran is arrested by the police and pleads guilty, while at the same time, Sudhir claims that it is he who killed Sunny. This confuses the police. Moreover, the body is missing from the burial spot. In a sudden change of events, Sunny is shown to be alive. It is revealed that the entire situation, from initiating the affair to goading Sudhir into a fight was planned in advance by Sunny, with the help of Radhika. Sunny hoped to have Sudhir imprisoned so that he could continue his affair with Simran. Sunny isolates Simran and chases her into a jungle, where Sudhir arrives and the two begin to fight. Sudhir manages to beat him, and Sunny leaves as he sees the couple together, seemingly realizing their love for each other. However, Sunny then runs up behind Sudhir with a rake but is then shot in the back by a police officer, who arrives just in time. Finally safe, Sudhir and Simran reunite and take care of their son together. 

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Bernardo (Gene Sheldon) and Zorro (Guy Williams) For most of its brief run, Zorro's episodes were part of continuing story arcs, each about thirteen episodes long, which made it almost like a serial. The first of these chronicles the arrival of Zorro / Diego to California in 1820 and his battle with the greedy and cruel local Comandante, Captain Enrique Sánchez Monasterio. After Monasterio's final defeat, in the second storyline, Zorro must uncover and counter the machinations of the evil Magistrado Carlos Galindo, who is part of a plot to rule California. The third story arc concerns the leader of that conspiracy, the shadowy figure of "The Eagle", revealed as vain and insecure José Sebastián de Vargas. It is revealed that the plot to gain control of California is so that he can turn it over to another country, implied to be Russia, for a huge profit. Season one concludes with Vargas' death. Season two opens with Diego in Monterey, the colonial capital, where privately collected money to bring a supply ship to California is consistently diverted to a gang of bandits. Diego stays to investigate, both as himself and as Zorro, and becomes interested in Ana Maria Verdugo, the daughter of the man organizing the effort. Once Zorro defeats the thieves, he enters into a rivalry with his old friend Ricardo del Amo, a practical joker who is also interested in Ana Maria. Ana Maria, in turn, is in love with Zorro. While in Monterey, Zorro and Sergeant Demetrio López García also get involved in a dispute between the people and a repressive Lieutenant Governor. Diego is on the verge of giving up his mask to marry Ana Maria, but Don Alejandro talks him out of it. Zorro (and Diego) says goodbye to Ana Maria and returns to Los Angeles, where he gets involved in a series of shorter adventures. In one three-episode story arc, guest-starring Annette Funicello, Zorro must solve the mystery of Anita Cabrillo's father, a man who does not seem to exist. Other storylines late in the series involve Diego's never-do- well uncle (Cesar Romero), a plot against the governor of California, an encounter with an American "mountain man" (Jeff York, reprising a role from The Saga of Andy Burnett), and outwitting a greedy emissary from Spain. 

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The film is set before, during, and after the Great War in several different parts of France, Austria, and Germany. Jules (Oskar Werner) is a shy writer from Austria who forges a friendship with the more extroverted Frenchman, Jim (Henri Serre). They share an interest in the world of the arts and the Bohemian lifestyle. At a slide show, they become entranced with a bust of a goddess and her serene smile and travel to see the ancient statue on an island in the Adriatic Sea. After encounters with several women, they meet the free-spirited, capricious Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a doppelgänger for the statue with the serene smile. The three hang out together. Although she begins a relationship with Jules, both men are affected by her presence and her attitude toward life. Jim continues to be involved with Gilberte, usually seeing her apart from the others. A few days before war is declared, Jules and Catherine move to Austria to get married. Both men serve during the war, on opposing sides; each fears throughout the conflict the potential for facing the other or learning that he might have killed his friend. After the wartime separation, Jim visits, and later stays with, Jules and Catherine in their house in the Black Forest. Jules and Catherine by then have a young daughter, Sabine. Jules confides the tensions in their marriage. He tells Jim that Catherine torments and punishes him at times with numerous affairs, and she once left him and Sabine for six months. She flirts with and attempts to seduce Jim, who has never forgotten her. Jules, desperate that Catherine might leave him forever, gives his blessing for Jim to marry Catherine so that he may continue to visit them and see her. For a while, the three adults live happily with Sabine in the same chalet in Austria, until tensions between Jim and Catherine arise because of their inability to have a child. Jim leaves Catherine and returns to Paris. After several exchanges of letters between Catherine and Jim, they resolve to reunite when she learns that she is pregnant. The reunion does not occur after Jules writes to tell Jim that Catherine suffered a miscarriage. After a time, Jim runs into Jules in Paris. He learns that Jules and Catherine have returned to France. Catherine tries to win Jim back, but he rebuffs her, saying he is going to marry Gilberte. Furious, she pulls a gun on him, but he wrestles it away and flees. He later encounters Jules and Catherine in a famous (at that time) movie theater, the Studio des Ursulines. The three of them stop at an outdoor cafe. Catherine asks Jim to get into her car, saying she has something to tell him. She asks Jules to watch them and drives the car off a damaged bridge into the river, killing herself and Jim. Jules is left to bury the ashes of his friends in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery columbarium; if the trio had their way, Catherine's ashes would've been scattered in the wind from a hilltop, but at the time it wasn't legal.Fry, Nicholas (translator). Truffaut, François and Gruault, Jean (script). Jules and Jim, a film by François Truffaut. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1968. 68-27592. pp. 11-100. 

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The stories are set mainly in the Berkshire countryside, at the farmhouse home of the children's grandmother, a Scottish-born woman named Mrs Hawthorne. The farm is called Smockfarthing, and is near to an imaginary village called Smockfarthing Wick, which in turn is close to a town called Riverton. Although these names are invented, they are based on real places - Smockfarthing is actually a house called Stonehill House, and Riverton is Abingdon. The house is mainly inhabited by John, Mary and their aunt 'Push', as well as their grandmother, and they are all real people - Push is Grace James herself, 'Mrs Hawthorne' is her mother, and John and Mary (or Giovanni and Maria) are her nephew and niece. John and Mary's parents live in RomeHorti Flaviani - the Cavalletti family home, where John and Mary lived when they were in Rome (later converted into a hotel), as their father is Italian and works there apparently as a diplomat (his work is described in John and Mary Revisit Rome as "involving a great deal of travelling about to far-off places") - he is married to John and Mary's mother, Push's sister (their real names were Henry and Elspeth Cavalletti). John and Mary are educated at home by a governess called Miss Rose Brown, although they spend about half their time in Rome, and indeed are bilingual in English and Italian. Smockfarthing carries a full complement of servants, including Mrs. Dyer the cook, Ellen the parlourmaid, Lizzie (whom the children call Lisetta) the maid, and Edie Kittiwake, the nurse. Edie's father Kittiwake looks after the farm with his son Reggie, and they and Mrs. Kittiwake live in a house on the farm called the Round House. Other characters, such as schoolmasters, vicars, postmistresses and so on, crop up in the books from time to time as well. Although the series covers about thirty years, John and Mary are never allowed to grow up (only from about the ages of four to twelve) and nothing ever changes very much in their surroundings. This leads to situations such as the war and rationing being discussed during the 1940s, and television and washing machines being mentioned in the 1960s. (One can only assume that Grace James wished to appeal to a constantly fresh readership, although children of the 1960s could possibly have found it rather odd that John and Mary would still have a governess and maids running around after them, in that era.) The John and Mary stories involve the children doing fairly normal and day-to-day things within their environment (mainly the countryside), although James makes sure that they meet unusual people and have adventures along the way. The stories are written in a realistic way and the adventures are the kind of adventures that any children could have under the same circumstances. John and Mary's Aunt is not about John and Mary at all, but is about James herself and her upbringing as a child in Japan. We learn that she was born in Tokyo and lived there until she was about twelve, although no exact dates are given. She does mention that her father was part of a naval mission and was there as an instructor - this seems to fit in with the time of the 'Douglas Mission' to Japan, which commenced in 1873 (hence the photographs in the book of her and her siblings in Victorian children's clothing). The books were published by Frederick Muller and were illustrated by Mary Gardiner. 

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Larry Dittmeyer, an unscrupulous real estate developer, explains to his supervisor that almost all the families in his neighborhood -- except for the Brady family -- have agreed to sell their property as part of a plan to turn the area into a shopping mall. At the Bradys' house, Mike and Carol are having breakfast prepared by their housekeeper, Alice, while the six children prepare for school. Jan is jealous of her elder, popular sister Marcia. Cindy is tattling about everything she's hearing. Greg is dreaming of becoming a singer (but sings folk songs more appropriate to the seventies). Peter is beginning puberty with his voice starting to break and the numerous titillations he is exposed to, notably sex education and his very attractive teacher Miss Linley. He is also trying to win the affection of the girl he loves, Holly, but his shy and awkward personality prevents him from doing so, or so he thinks. Bobby is excited about his new role as hall monitor at school. Cindy gives Mike and Carol a tax delinquency notice (which was earlier mistakenly delivered to the Dittmeyers) stating that they face foreclosure on their house if they do not pay $20,000 in back taxes. The two initially ignore the crisis, but when Mike's architectural design (which is exactly the same as their house) is turned down by two potential clients, he tells Carol that they may have to sell the house. Cindy overhears this and tells her siblings and they look for work to raise money to save the house, but their earnings are nowhere near enough to reach the required sum. Mike manages to sell a Japanese company on one of his dated designs, thereby securing the money, only for Larry to sabotage it by claiming that Mike's last building collapsed. On the night before the Bradys have to move out, Marcia suggests that they enter a "Search for the Stars" contest, the prize of which is exactly $20,000. Jan, having originally suggested this and been rejected, runs away from home. Cindy sees her leave and tattles, and the whole family goes on a search for her. They use their car's citizens' band radio, and their transmission is heard by Schultzy (Ann B. Davis), a long-haul trucker who picks up Jan and convinces her to return home. The next day, the children join the "Search for the Stars" contest. Peter finally builds the confidence to stand up to Eric Dittmeyer, Peter's tormentor and Holly's boyfriend, which earns him a kiss from Holly and turns him into a man. The children's dated performance receives a poor audience response compared to the more modern performances of other bands. However, the judges — Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork of The Monkees — vote for them, and they win the contest as a result. The tax bill is paid and their neighbors withdraw their homes from the market, foiling Larry's plan and securing the neighborhood. Later, Carol's mother (Florence Henderson) arrives and finally convinces Jan to stop being jealous of Marcia, only for Cindy to start feeling jealous of Jan. 

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13-year-old Adam Hansen (Matt O'Leary) and his best friend Duffy (Jake Epstein) have some tickets for the Headless Horseman concert, and his sister 16-year-old Chelsea (Laura Vandervoort) has a date with her dreamy boyfriend Peter. The only problem is, they are both grounded: Adam is punished because he did not do his homework, instead making up a story using an article from the magazine The Weekly Secret, and Chelsea because she called Adam a dweeb, which their mother, Lynette (Caroline Rhea), happened to hear. Chelsea and Adam will do whatever it takes to get their mother out of the house, even if it includes a chance meeting with a very mysterious man named Dimitri (Charles Shaughnessy). Everything seems to go according to plan, until their 8-year-old little brother Taylor (Myles Jeffrey) realizes that Dimitri is a vampire. His brother and sister do not believe Taylor, so he calls Malachi Van Helsing (Robert Carradine), the vampire hunter. The night that their mother goes out with Dimitri, Taylor follows them. Not wanting their mother to come home and extend their punishments, they follow Taylor and find him outside the restaurant that Lynette and Dimitri are at. Adam and Taylor make the vampire do the spoon test (a fake test made up by Adam to get Taylor to stop calling Dimitri a vampire). Afterwards, Adam discovers that Taylor's hunch about Dimitri was right when he looks in the mirror and notices Dimitri does not have a reflection. So, along with Chelsea, he sets out to stop Dimitri, who puts their mother in a trance and plans to take her to his mansion. Meanwhile, Malachi Van Helsing arrives and begins to hunt down Dimitri, only to discover that he was being followed by Taylor, who (after learning the spoon test was made up by Adam) had also set out to save his mother from Dimitri. In the end, Taylor becomes Van Helsing's partner and they arrive to do battle with Dimitri, who has Lynette in a trance, but even together Taylor, Adam, Chelsea and Van Helsing are unable to defeat Dimitri. Dimitri goes to bite a powerless Adam, but he and Chelsea call out to Lynette, breaking her trance (as only true love for someone can break a vampire's trance). She throws Dimitri into his coffin. Van Helsing seals the coffin with silver-plated nails and explains that he plans to send it to a place where it's always sunny. Shortly after Dimitri is sealed up, Van Helsing asks their mother out on a "date", after which Adam, Chelsea and Taylor, believing they have heard the word "date" enough for one night, try to convince her to stay single which is when Lynette confesses, "I date. Just not vampires". Finally, they all decide to go back to the Hansen house for breakfast as the sun is finally rising. 

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Eve Batiste (Jurnee Smollett), a 10-year-old girl, lives in a prosperous Creole-American community in Louisiana with her younger brother Poe (Jake Smollett) and her older sister Cisely (Meagan Good) in the 1960s. Their parents are Roz (Lynn Whitfield) and Louis (Samuel L. Jackson), a well-respected doctor in Louisiana's "colored" community who claims descent from the French aristocrat who founded the town of Eve's Bayou. One night after a raucous party, Eve accidentally witnesses her father having sex with Matty Mereaux (Lisa Nicole Carson), a family friend. However, Cisely, who has a very affectionate relationship with her father, convinces Eve that she misinterpreted an innocent moment. The unreliability of memory and observation remain important themes throughout the film. The summer quickly becomes a chaotic and stressful one for the Batiste family. Eve's relationship with her parents becomes more strained as she discovers more evidence of her father's serial infidelity. Cisely comes into conflict with both her sister and mother as she enters puberty and tries to navigate the difficult transition to adulthood, particularly with regard to her appearance and sexuality. Roz eventually begins to suspect her husband's infidelity, prompting conflict between the two as well. During the chaotic summer, Eve often seeks refuge with her Aunt Mozelle (Debbi Morgan) who works as a "psychic counselor" and has had three husbands who all died violently; the most recent having died in a car crash. Eve, who has a premonitory dream shortly before the accident occurs, is told by Mozelle that the gift of second sight runs in their family. Mozelle's gift also brings her into direct conflict with Elzora (Diahann Carroll), a fortune teller and possible witch with similar abilities. When asked for a reading by Roz, Elzora implies that an unexpected "solution" to her problem will arise, but to wait and look to her children in the meantime. When Mozelle grudgingly makes a similar request, Elzora cruelly tells her that she is a "black widow," whose future husbands will suffer the same fate as her previous ones. Meanwhile, Eve, frustrated by her father's infidelity, begins to act out, bringing her into conflict with the other members of her family. Cisely begins to behave strangely as well, isolating herself from the family after experiencing her first period. Cisely later confides in Eve the secret behind her strange mood. She tells her that one night, after their parents had a vicious argument, Cisely went to comfort her father and he, while drunk, attempted to molest her. Enraged, Eve seeks out Elzora to commission a voodoo spell to put a fatal curse on her father. While on her way to visit the witch, Eve runs into Lenny Mereaux (Roger Guenveur Smith) and questions him about his teaching job that keeps him away from home. In the conversation, she alludes to a possible tryst between his wife, Matty, and her father. Eve is under the impression that she is going to receive a voodoo doll of her father. When returning to the witch to get her doll, she is informed that there is no doll and that, per her request, a curse has been placed on her father. In an attempt to save him, Eve rushes to bring her father home, finding him in a bar chatting with Matty Mereaux. At the same time, a drunken Lenny arrives to take Matty home. After a confrontation, Lenny and Matty leave the bar, and Lenny tells Louis that he will kill him if he talks to Matty again. After Louis says goodbye to Matty, Lenny shoots and kills Louis. After her father's funeral, Eve soon finds a letter which her father wrote to Mozelle, disputing the accusations. In it, he claims that Cisely had come to him that night and kissed him, first as a daughter and then as a lover. In his drunken state, he reacted violently, slapping her and pushing her to the ground, which made her angry with him. Eve confronts Cisely and uses her second sight to discover what really happened. It ends with the sisters holding hands, gazing at the sunset. 

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Columbia Air Lines Flight 409 is a Boeing 747-100 on a red-eye route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. Scott Freeman, meanwhile, is a businessman flying his private Beechcraft Baron to an urgent sales meeting in Boise, Idaho. However, an occluded front has the entire West Coast of the United States socked in, with Los Angeles reporting zero visibility. Columbia 409 and Freeman's Beechcraft are diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport. Salt Lake air traffic control assigns Columbia 409 to land ahead of Freeman's Beechcraft. As Columbia 409 is about to start its descent, First Officer Urias unlocks himself from his seat to check out a vibration. Just then, Freeman suffers a heart attack and unknowingly descends into the approach of Columbia 409. The Beechcraft slams into Columbia 409 just above the co-pilot seat, blowing Urias out of the plane to his death, destroying most of the Flight Engineer's panel and fatally injuring Flight Engineer Julio. Captain Stacy is struck in the face by debris and is blinded. Nancy Pryor, the First Stewardess, rushes to the flight deck, to find Flight Engineer Julio dead, First Officer Urias gone and Captain Stacy injured. Although severely injured and blinded, he is still alive. Using the last of his strength, Captain Stacy is able to engage the autopilot and the altitude hold switch before losing consciousness. Pryor informs the Salt Lake control tower that the crew is dead or badly injured and that there is no one to fly the plane. She gives an assessment of the damage as a large hole on the right side of the flight deck that destroyed most of the instrument gauges over the engineer station. Joe Patroni, Columbia's Vice President of Operations, is apprised of Columbia 409's situation. He seeks the advice of Captain Al Murdock, Columbia's chief flight instructor, who also happens to be Nancy Pryor's boyfriend, even though their relationship was "on the rocks" at that time. Patroni and Murdock take the airline's executive jet to Salt Lake. En route, they communicate with Pryor, learning that the autopilot is keeping the aircraft in level flight, but it is inoperable for turns. The jet is heading into the Wasatch Mountains, so Murdock starts to guide Pryor by radio on how to perform the turn when radio communications are interrupted and the Salt Lake tower is unable to restore contact. Unable to turn, leaking fuel and dodging the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains, an air-to-air rescue attempt is undertaken from a HH-53 helicopter flown by the US Air Force Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service. While a replacement pilot is preparing to be released on a tether from the helicopter to Columbia 409, Captain Stacy is able to give a cryptic clue regarding the decrease in airspeed during a climb in altitude. Pryor realizes that she must accelerate to be able to climb over the mountain and successfully does so. After Columbia 409 has leveled off, the replacement pilot is released towards the stricken airliner. Just as Pryor is helping him in, the release cord from his harness becomes caught in the jagged metal surrounding the hole in the cockpit. As he climbs in, his harness is released from the tether and he falls from the aircraft. The only other person on the helicopter who can land a 747 is Captain Murdock. He is tethered to the helicopter, lowered to the jet and successfully enters it through the hole in the cockpit. He then lands the plane safely at Salt Lake City Airport. However, when he does land he is forced to taxi the plane around the airport as it does not stop right away. The flight attendants successfully conduct an emergency evacuation of the passengers via the inflatable slides as Pryor and Murdock reconcile. 

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Janey Glenn is an army brat whose father Robert has retired from the Army and relocated to Chicago, the home of her favorite dance show Dance TV. At her Catholic girls school, she quickly makes a new friend in Lynne Stone due to their shared love of Dance TV. Although Robert nixes the idea of her traveling to downtown Chicago to try out as a dancer for Dance TV, Janey accompanies Lynne to the auditions anyway. At the auditions, an enemy is made of spoiled rich girl Natalie Sands when she narrowly misses Lynne while parking her car. The auditions are going well until Lynne's partner is cut (it is later discovered that Natalie bribed Lynne's partner to sabotage her audition). Janey and a local high school kid, Jeff, both shine, and are partnered together once they make the finals. Jeff loves to dance, though he feels pressured to attend trade school after graduation, like his father did before him. The two butt heads initially due to their disparate upbringings. Despite Jeff's natural ability to dance, he has never taken a class. Janey has been taking both gymnastics and dance classes for ten years. Helping them to get off on the wrong foot is also Janey's inability to practice, due to her strict father's rules. Things are further complicated by Natalie's meddling as she finds out that Janey skipped choir practice to meet Jeff and calls her father to tell, posing as "Sister Natalie". An excellent opportunity for both girls to get back at Natalie presents itself when Jeff is invited to her coming out party. They make hundreds of copies of her invitation (provided by Jeff's best friend Drew) and pass them out to quite a few odd characters all over town. Jeff and Drew attend the party and watch the chaos ensue when all of the oddballs that were given invites show up (as do Lynne, Janey and Jeff's sister Maggie, watching from the window). Janey and Jeff have become close through their rehearsals. One night, he tells her to meet him not at the rehearsal studio but at a club. While they are enjoying some unstructured dance time, Jeff is taken away by a girl who locked her keys in her car. Meanwhile, a large admirer moves in on her. On Jeff's return, a fight ensues and after Jeff sucker punches the much larger man, they run out of the club together. Once at Janey's house, she is aglow over what her life has become: she is in the running to become a Dance TV regular, has a great best friend, as well as a boyfriend. They finally kiss before she excitedly runs inside. Given the total wreck the party became, the rivalry with Natalie has intensified. She convinces her father to become more involved in ensuring her win. This is an easy feat considering that her father owns the company that Jeff's father works for. One day, Natalie's father, J.P. Sands, corners Jeff and tells him that if Natalie does not win, Jeff's father will lose his job. This puts him in a bad mood and he has a falling-out with Janey when he arrives at rehearsal. Her mood quickly matches his when she arrives home and sneaks into the house only to find that her father has installed a security system. He then grounds her for her continuous deception, making it virtually impossible for her to attend the dance contest final the next day. Meanwhile, Jeff's surly attitude and decreased desire to be in the contest is noticed by his father. Once he finally gets his son to talk, he simply asks if he can win the contest. When Jeff answers yes, he is instructed to do so and not to worry about his father's job. However, Janey is still on restriction and does not know Jeff has changed his mind. However, that changes when her little brother brings her a message that Jeff will compete and she employs Lynne to get her out of the house undetected. Once Lynne arrives, Janey cuts the wires to the security system and escapes the clutches of the guard dog. When they arrive at the station, Janey makes the elevator up to the studio and Lynne does not. She barely makes the beginning of the show, embracing and kissing Jeff as she arrives. The show begins and the competition is underway. At home, Janey's family turns on the television and sees her dancing. Her father, furious, storms out of the house, on the way to the studio. Meanwhile, Jeff's father watches the show from his neighborhood pub, surrounded by friends who are all cheering on Jeff and Janey. After all of the dancers have performed on the live show, the decision comes back: there is a tie between Janey and Jeff and Natalie and her partner. A dance-off ensues. Natalie goes first and when done, strolls off the stage proudly, believing she has won. But after Janey tells Jeff "Let's do it", they pull out all the stops with a series of synchronized gymnastics Janey has taught Jeff over their time together. When the judges deliberate again, the decision is unanimous: Jeff and Janey win. Natalie is furious and begins to berate her partner over costing her the contest. When she goes to her father to complain, he finally puts his foot down and tells his spoiled daughter to shut up, to her amazement. When Janey spots her father in the studio, she thinks she is in for trouble, but he smiles and shows his enthusiasm at her obvious talent. Miss Dance TV is called to the stage and when she enters, it is none other than Lynne, who has received the job when the former Miss Dance TV quit during the show. 

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Dragonlord Linden Rathan and his wife, Maurynna Kyrissean are trying to enjoy the life of newlyweds when a traveller brings a shocking tale to Dragonskeep: the empire of Jehanglan, far to the south, is sustained through the power of a phoenix, bound by the magical power of a truedragon, also trapped and exploited. Learning they must act before the phoenix is due to die and be reborn, Linden, Maurynna, and their mortal and immortal friends launch a daring rescue operation to the reclusive Phoenix Empire. Meanwhile, in the halls of Jehanglan's imperial palace, a power struggle erupts between Shei-Luin, the emperor's favorite concubine, and Jhanun, the most conservative of the Jehangli nobles. The emperor himself meanwhile, finds himself increasingly swayed into believing the heresies of Shei-Luin's estranged and exiled father: the history of Jehanglan is a lie, and phoenix must be freed. Category:1999 American novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Tor Books books 

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Set in the legendary town of Tombstone, Arizona, the plot centers on former gunslinger Wyatt Earp, who helps the sheriff round up criminals. Earp becomes a lawman after he sees an outlaw accidentally kill a child during a showdown. Earp's brothers and Doc Holliday help him take on the outlaw and his gang. More trouble ensues when the sheriff becomes involved with the gang. Earp manages to get them on robbery charges and the situation finally culminates at the infamous O.K. Corral. 

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Inspector Zenigata travels to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to confirm the execution of his longtime nemesis Arsène Lupin III; the body he finds is a decoy that is being used by the real Lupin to flee from the castle. Zenigata travels to Egypt, believing that Lupin will raid the Giza Necropolis based on prior thefts of immortality- granting objects. His prediction proves accurate, but Lupin and his colleagues Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa XIII flee with the Philosopher's Stone. The Stone was requested by Lupin's would-be lover, Fujiko Mine, who, having agreed to obtain the Stone for a mysterious client, steals it from Lupin in Paris. The benefactor, who calls himself Mamo, discovers that the Stone is a fake made by Lupin. In response, Lupin's gang is attacked by Mamo's forces before finding their hideout destroyed by his henchman, Flinch. Jigen and Goemon blame the hideout's destruction on Fujiko, before quarrelling between themselves; Lupin calms the others by promising to abandon his desires for Fujiko. With nowhere else to go, they travel toward the ocean before finding a house with food and water. A wounded Fujiko comes for Lupin, forcing him to go against his promise and causing Jigen and Goemon to abandon them. Fujiko drugs Lupin before Flinch arrives to take them to Mamo. Jigen later returns to find Flinch's plane taking off, but retrieves a clue to its destination. He and Goemon are later interrogated about Mamo by American agents, but are released when they are unable to answer their questions. During the inquiry, they decipher Fujiko's clue, leading them to Mamo's Caribbean island. Mamo, a mysterious billionaire officially known as Howard Lockewood, tells Lupin that he manipulated him into stealing the Stone as a test, as he is considering granting him and Fujiko immortality in admiration of his skills and her beauty. Lupin, however, is more interested in the Stone, and searches Mamo's island for it. After retrieving the Stone, he and Fujiko are chased by Mamo's henchmen until they stumble across Mamo's lair. Mamo deems Lupin unworthy of eternal life and attempts to visualize his perverted nature to Fujiko, but she refuses to abandon him. The USAF attacks the base, having tracked Jigen and Goemon to the island. Jigen rescues Lupin and Fujiko and seemingly kills Mamo in a shootout, while Goemon duels with Flinch. The altercation damages Goemon's sword, the Zantetsuken, causing him to leave for training purposes. Lupin, Fujiko and Jigen travel to Colombia, where Lupin theorizes that Mamo may have gained eternal life by continuously cloning himself. They are thrust into a vision by Mamo, who reveals that his cloning technique has kept him alive for ten thousand years, and that he is responsible for virtually every major event in human history. Mamo also explains that he cloned Lupin. He then appears in person to reclaim Fujiko, and a distraught Lupin challenges him to perform a miracle. Mamo responds by setting off an earthquake through the destruction of a nuclear power station. Inside a temple, Mamo explains to Fujiko that his cloning technique has never been perfected, and that he has degenerated from his original form as a result. He decides that he and Fujiko must repopulate the Earth, and convinces her to push a button to launch nuclear missiles to achieve this end. Lupin arrives, and reveals that he rigged the missiles to explode before they could launch. Frustrated, Mamo takes Fujiko with him to a launching pad and fends Lupin off with lasers. Lupin uses the tip of Goemon's sword (given to him by Jigen earlier) to deflect the lasers, incinerating Mamo. A rocketship emerges, containing a giant brain that reveals itself to be the original Mamo. Lupin realizes that Mamo had controlled his clones resembling his body just as the rocket launches into space. Lupin and Fujiko escape the rocket's trajectory, but not before Lupin plants an explosive on it. The glass shatters, and Mamo's brain drifts toward the sun. Lupin finds Fujiko in the rubble, where he is captured by Zenigata. Fujiko offers to help Lupin, but the Americans launch a missile attack on Mamo's base. Fujiko is rescued by Jigen, while Lupin and Zenigata, handcuffed together, escape on foot. 

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The first three chapters of The War in the Air relate details of the life of Bert Smallways and his extended family in a location called Bun Hill, a (fictional) former Kentish village that had become a London suburb within living memory. The story begins with Bert's brother Tom, a stolid greengrocer who views technological progress with apprehension, and their aged father, who recalls with longing the time when Bun Hill was a quiet village and he had driven the local squire's carriage. However, the story soon focuses on Bert who is an unimpressive, not particularly gifted, unsuccessful young man with few ideas about larger things but is far from unintelligent. He has a strong attachment to a young woman named Edna. When bankruptcy threatens one summer, he and his partner abandon the shop, devise a singing act ("the Desert Dervishes"), and resolve to try their fortunes in English sea resorts. As chance would have, their initial performance is interrupted by a balloon which lands on the beach before them, and which turns out to contain one Mr. Butteridge. Butteridge is famous for his successful invention of an easily manoeuvrable fixed-wing aircraft whose secret he has not revealed and that he is seeking to sell to the British government or, failing that, to Germany. Prior to Butteridge, nobody had succeeded in producing a practical heavier- than-air machine, only a few awkward devices of limited utility such as the German "Drachenflieger", which had to be towed aloft and released from an airship. Butteridge's invention is a major breakthrough, as it is highly manoeuvrable, capable of both very fast and very slow flight, and requires only a small area to take off and land, reminiscent of the later autogyro. By accident Bert is carried off in Butteridge's balloon, and discovers Butteridge's secret plans on board it. Bert is clever enough to appraise his situation, and when the balloon is shot down in a secret German "aeronautic park east of Hamburg,"H.G. Wells, The War in the Air, Ch. 3, §5. Bert tries to sell Mr. Butteridges's invention. However, he has stumbled upon the German air fleet just as it is about to launch a surprise attack on the United States - and Prince Karl Albert, the author and leader of this plan, decides to take him along for the campaign. The Prince, world-famous as "the German Alexander" or Napoleon, is a living manifestation of German nationalism and boundless imperial ambitions, his personality as depicted by Wells in some ways resembling that of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Bert's disguise is soon seen through by the Germans, and – narrowly avoiding being summarily thrown overboard by the furious prince – he is relegated to the role of a witness to the true horror of war. Imperial German Flying Corps, like this one, invade the United States and launch devastating air raids on New York City. The German aerial forces, comprising airships and Drachenfliegers, are mounting their surprise attack on the United States before the Americans can build a large aerial navy; the pretext for the attack is a German demand for the US to abandon the Monroe Doctrine, so as to facilitate German imperial ambitions in South America. The Germans are, however, unaware that the "Confederation of Eastern Asia" (China and Japan) has secretly been building a massive air force. Tensions between Japan and the United States, exacerbated by the issue of American citizenship being denied to Japanese immigrants, leads to war breaking out between the Confederation of Eastern Asia and the US, whereupon the Confederation turns out to possess overwhelmingly strong aerial forces, and the US finds itself fighting a war on two fronts: the Eastern and the Western, in the air as well on sea. Bert Smallways is present as the Germans first attack an American naval fleet in the Atlantic, utterly obliterating it and proving Dreadnoughts to be obsolete and helpless against aerial bombardment. The Germans then appear over New York City, bomb several key points, and establish that they have the city at their mercy, whereupon the mayor, with the consent of the White House, offers New York's surrender. However, the surrender announcement rouses the population's patriotic fury; local militias rebel and manage to destroy a German airship over Union Square using a concealed artillery piece. Following this, the vengeful prince orders a wholesale destruction, airships moving along Broadway and systematically raining death and destruction on the population below. Following the destruction of New York, the far inferior American flying machines launch a suicidal attack on the overwhelming German force. They are almost completely obliterated, but cripple the Germans. The prince's flagship is disabled, and is unable to avoid being driven north by gale-force winds, eventually crashlanding in Labrador. Bert becomes an official member of the crew, as they struggle to survive in the freezing wilderness, befriends an English-speaking German junior officer, and for a time feels strong fellowship towards his crew mates. After a week they are picked up by another German airship, and carried directly into the fray of a ferocious new battle. According to the prince's plans for the attack on the US, simultaneously with the subduing of New York, other German forces had landed at Niagara Falls, summarily evicted all the American population as far as Buffalo, and set to work building a large German airfield on American soil. However, the Asians – who have their own plans of conquest in America, and have already destroyed San Francisco – send their aerial forces over the Rocky Mountains and engage the Germans in battle, seeking to conquer or destroy the Niagara base. Goat Island of the sky in which Bert Smallways saw the battle between German and Asian airships. The Asiatic air fleet is equipped with large numbers of lightweight one-man flying machines called Niais, which appear to be ornithopters, armed with a gun carried by the pilot firing explosive bullets "loaded with oxygen" (i.e. incendiary bullets) for use against the hydrogen-filled airships. The Asians prove overwhelmingly superior, and the German airships are either destroyed or forced to flee, eventually surrendering to the Americans; only a few remain with Prince Karl Albert, who attempts a heroic last stand. Bert is stranded on Goat Island in the middle of Niagara Falls, where he finds a crashed Niais and discovers that Prince Karl Albert and a surviving German officer share the island with him. Their clash of personalities eventually culminates in a life-or-death confrontation, and Bert – originally gentle and sickened by bloodshed – overcomes his civilised scruples and kills the prince. Bert then manages to repair the Asian flying machine and escapes from the island on it, crash- landing near Tanooda, New York. Upon making contact with local Americans, Bert learns that the Asiatic forces have landed "a million men" on the western seaboard. The original GermanAmerican conflict, which had set off the conflagration, is almost forgotten in the massive conflict with the Asian forces – a conflict carried out with great savagery, neither side taking prisoners. All over the US, Chinese Americans are being lynched and in some places the lynching extends to blacks as well. Bert learns that the war is going badly for the Americans, who are unable to withstand the superior Asian flying machines; the Americans mourn the loss of the Butteridge machine which might have turned the tide, if its inventor had not died suddenly shortly before the outbreak of war, taking his secret with him. Bert discloses that the plans for Butteridge's flying machine are in his possession, whereupon a local militia leader named Laurier urges him to turn the plans over to the president. After an adventurous ride through war-ravaged upstate New York they find the president hiding out in "Pinkerville on the Hudson." The president proceeds to have copies printed and distributed widely all over the US, as well as sent to Europe. However, the results are not quite as expected. A decisive Asiatic victory is, indeed, averted – but there is no American or European victory, either. The Butteridge machine is cheap, easy and quick to build, and needs no big fields to take off or land – which mean it can be built and operated not only by national governments, but also by private groups, local militias, and even bandits – a development which tends to break up the war into a vast, incoherent multitude of localised struggles and which accelerates the already-begun process of break-up and disintegration of the world's nations. While Bert experiences directly the events in America, news about what has happened in the rest of the world (specifically, in his native England) is few and scattered, with newspapers reduced to a single page before finally ceasing publication altogether; still, he hears with great alarm that London had shared the fate of New York. The omniscient author, whose point of view is that of a future historian documenting the war and its aftermath, reveals information not available to Bert. The German assault on the US had bypassed Germany's European rivals, whose air fleets were considered too puny to constitute a threat, with the intention of totally dominating them once the Americans had been subdued. However, the alarmed United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy pooled their aerial resources into a single strong force, passed through Swiss airspace after destroying that country's own flying machines, and devastated Hamburg and Berlin. The Germans mobilised a counter-attack which destroyed London and Paris, but then, as in America, the feuding Europeans were faced with an enormous attack from Asia. The Asiatic fleet had attacked a combined Anglo-Indian aerial force, captured the Burmese airfields, Australia, and the Pacific islands. They then struck westwards, capturing the Middle East and South Africa and starting to build airships at Cairo, Damascus and Johannesburg. Moving further northwards, they soon reached Armenia and then defeating the German forces in the Battle of the Carpathians before attacking Western Europe. A global financial collapse is caused by hostile nations freezing assets, and the end of the credit system. This is referred to as "the Panic," which is followed by "The Purple Death." The War in the Air, the Panic, and the Purple Death bring about "[w]ithin the space of five years" a total collapse of "the whole fabric of civilisation."H.G. Wells, The War in the Air, Ch. 11, §1. But Bert Smallways, fixated on his amorous attachment, returns home after many adventures to kill a rival and win the hand of his beloved Edna; they marry and have eleven children. We are assured in the final chapter that "our present world state, orderly, scientific, and secured,"H.G. Wells, The War in the Air, Ch. 11, §1. is eventually established, but the novel reverts to the ensuing fortunes of the Smallways family as England relapses into a sort of an agricultural barbaric age. 

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A washroom attendant, Louis Blore, has won a sweepstakes, and subsequently quits his job. He is in love with the nightclub singer May Daly, but she is in love with Alex Barton. Alex is the brother of her friend Alice, who is in love with Harry Norton. Meanwhile, Alex is unhappily married to Ann. Charley, Louis's replacement, suggests that Louis slip Alex a Mickey Finn. While trying to do so, Louis inadvertently drinks the Mickey Finn, falls asleep, and dreams he is King Louis XV of France, and that May is Madame du Barry. In his dream, Charley becomes the Dauphin (later Louis XVI) and Harry becomes the captain of the guard, with Ann as Du Barry's lady-in-waiting, and Alex as a peasant who wrote a rude song about The King and Du Barry (the title song: Du Barry Was a Lady). Eventually after various entanglements (including the Dauphin's shooting the King in the posterior with a bow and arrow), Louis wakes up and realises that Alex is the man for May. He uses the last of his winnings to pay for Alex's divorce from Ann, and (with Charley having just quit his job) goes back to being a washroom attendant. 

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In the Galilean countryside near the city of Nazareth, a young boy and his father own four donkeys. Three of these donkeys are young and strong. The fourth donkey, Small One, is old and weak, but the boy loves him anyway. Every day, the boy and the donkey play together before they go to work, helping the boy's father to collect wood. The boy and his father take the donkeys to work one morning, as they always do. Many times, the boy loads Small One with small sticks, since Small One can't carry heavy loads any more. Small One even has trouble carrying stacks of small sticks and the boy helps to carry them for him. That evening, the boy's father tells the boy that he has to sell Small One because he can no longer do enough work to cover the cost of his care. Devastated, but understanding, the boy asks if he can be the one to sell his best friend. The father agrees and tells him that he has to sell him for one piece of silver. That night, the boy comforts Small One and promises to find him a gentle and loving master. The next morning, the boy takes Small One to the market. Their task begins by being tricked into a haunting visit to the local tanner by a guard at the city gates. Terrified, they quickly run out of the shop once they realize he only wants the donkey's hide. As they wander the streets looking for a buyer, they encounter several townspeople, shop owners, and merchants, none of whom want to buy. In a final attempt to find a buyer, the boy leads Small One onto the stage at a horse auction. The auctioneer has no interest in selling a "scrawny donkey," which causes the boy to insist that Small One is "good enough to be in a king's stable." This prompts the auctioneer to laugh and poke fun, sarcastically playing along to embarrass them and rouse the crowd. When he attempts to sit on Small One, he shoves the boy out of the way. Upon seeing this, Small One rouses the strength to buck and kick the auctioneer off him, sending him crashing into the stage and knocking it over. Afraid and ashamed, the boy and Small One run around a corner to escape the unruly auctioneer. As dusk falls on the city, the pair have run out of options, and sit on a street corner weeping, without hope. In this bleak moment, a kind man comes up to the boy and asks if Small One is for sale. The man needs a gentle donkey to carry his wife to Bethlehem, insists he will take good care of him, and offers one piece of silver. The boy accepts, says goodbye to Small One, and watches as the couple and Small One leave on their journey as a bright star appears in the sky. 

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Stan asks his parents for permission to see Cartman's grandmother in Nebraska for the holidays, but they refused because this place is far away from South Park. Feeling disillusioned with the idea of family, he runs off to Cartman's house just in time to join the other boys. During the drive to Nebraska, they see a sign for an appearance of Mr. Hankey at a mall. When they finally arrive, Cartman's relatives are there, all of whom share Cartman's mannerisms. At dinner, they meet Cartman's Uncle Howard, live via satellite from the state prison. Later that night, the boys hear someone breaking into the house and discover that it is Uncle Howard and another inmate, Charlie Manson. The boys want to go to the mall to see Mr. Hankey, but no one in the family will take them, and Cartman is asked to keep an eye on his cousin, Elvin. Manson offers to take the boys to the mall. Kyle and Stan meet a human-sized Mr. Hankey, whom Kyle exposes as a fake, causing a riot. The boys and Manson escape from the mall, but when the riot police recognize Manson, they get into a televised high speed chase with the police. Manson arrives at the Cartman household, and, together with Uncle Howard, proceeds to hold everyone hostage. Stan's parents arrive and punishes him for disobeying their order to not go to Cartman's grandmother in Nebraska without their permission. Stan asks to make an escape with Uncle Howard and Manson but Manson talks to him about the meaning of family, which makes him change his mind. Manson and Uncle Howard surrender and sing a holiday-special style song. Stan's parents agree that they were unreasonable when denying him a Christmas with his friends. Later, as Manson goes to sleep in prison, Stan, Kyle, and all of the Cartmans appear to sing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" to Manson. 

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Indiana Jones hunts down an English alchemist, a Renaissance scholar and a stolen manuscript containing the great alchemical secrets of immortality and transmuting base metals to gold. The book was published only in paperback by Bantam Books of New York City in April 1995. 

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Ju Dou takes place in the early 20th century in rural China. Yang Tianqing (Li Baotian) is returning from a trek to sell silk for his adoptive uncle, Yang Jinshan (Li Wei). Jinshan, whose trade is dyeing fabrics, is known for his cruelty. Jinshan has recently purchased a new wife, having beaten two previous wives to death after they failed to produce a son, the cruel irony being that Jinshan is in fact impotent. Upon meeting the wife, Ju Dou (Gong Li), Tianqing is enamored with her. At night, Jinshan tortures Ju Dou. Tianqing discovers Ju Dou's bathing area and spies on her. He does not know that Ju Dou knows he is there. Although Tianqing watches luridly at first, Ju Dou transforms the meaning of his gaze by exposing her bruises and sobbing, forcing him to see her as a human being rather than just a sexual object. Soon, the two are unable to control their passion any longer and engage in sex. When Ju Dou discovers she is pregnant with Tianqing's child, she and Tianqing pretend that the child is Jinshan's. Jinshan suffers a stroke that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down. After Ju Dou tells him the child is not his, he attempts to kill the child and burn down the house. Tianqing ties up Jinshan and hoists him in a barrel, leaving him dangling helplessly, a bitter bystander to his usurpation. Knowing that society would never accept her infidelity, Ju Dou goes to a nunnery to terminate another pregnancy. Jinshan continues to influence the life of the child he named Tianbai and when the child calls Jinshan "Father," Jinshan accepts this as psychological revenge on his wife and nephew. One day, Jinshan falls into the dye vat and drowns and a funeral is held for him. Seven years later, Ju Dou and Tianqing still run the dye operation but Tianbai (Zheng Ji'an) is now a rage-filled teenager. Rumors of his parents' infidelities drive him to nearly kill a local gossiper. Ju Dou reveals the truth to her son in a fit of rage. She and Tianqing decide to have one last affair and grow weak after falling asleep in a cellar with little air. Upon discovering his parents resting in the cellar after their tryst, Tianbai drags them out - still weak and unable to awaken - and drowns Tianqing. Ju Dou then burns the mill down as the film ends. 

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Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan), who is known by his followers as Sarkar, lives in Mumbai. The opening scenes show a rape victim's father (Veerendra Saxena) approaching Sarkar for justice (which the corrupt law and order system has failed to deliver) which Sarkar promptly establishes by having the rapist beaten up by his henchmen. His son, Vishnu (Kay Kay Menon), plays a sleazy producer who is more interested in the film actress Sapna (Priyanka Kothari) than his wife Amrita (Rukhsaar Rehman). Sarkar's other, more upright son, Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan), returns from the United States with his love Pooja (Katrina Kaif) after completing his education there. Pooja's doubts about Sarkar's image cause Shankar, who firmly believes in his father's righteousness, to break up with her. One day, a Dubai-based don, Rasheed (Zakir Hussain) tries to strike a deal with Sarkar; he promptly refuses on moral grounds and also forbids him from doing it himself. Rasheed tries to eliminate Sarkar's supremacy with the help of Selvar Mani (Kota Srinivasa Rao), Sarkar's former associate, MLA Vishram Bhagat and Swami Virendra (Jeeva). Meanwhile, they trap Sarkar by assassinating a righteous, upright, Ahinsa political leader and an outspoken critic of Sarkar, Motilal Khurana (Anupam Kher), and frame Sarkar for the murder. Everyone, including Vishnu, believes that Sarkar is guilty but Shankar has deep faith in his father. Sarkar gets arrested and is imprisoned. Shankar now takes over the position of Sarkar temporarily. On learning of a plot to murder his father in prison, he approaches the police commissioner (Anant Jog) and asks him to arrange stronger security for his father, only for the commissioner to mock Shankar and his father beside not providing protection. Shankar gets a feeling that the police commissioner wants Sarkar to get murdered. Shankar and Khansaab, one of Sarkar's men, try to ask Selvar Mani for help to prevent possible murder, but Mani ultimately betrays them when he reveals that he is in an alliance with Rasheed. Rasheed prepares to kill Shankar and Khansaab but only Khansaab is killed when he decides to sacrifice himself for Shankar. By the time Shankar reaches the prison and appropriate action is taken, the attempt on Sarkar's life is already made. Sarkar is later acquitted. He remains bedridden as Shankar takes on Sarkar's enemies. Meanwhile, Selvar Mani, Swami, Vishram and Rasheed try to convince Vishnu to murder Sarkar. Vishnu was previously thrown out of Sarkar's house because he had murdered the actor who was having an affair with Sapna. Vishnu returns home pretending to have repented. When he approaches Sarkar in the dark of the night with the intent of murdering him, Shankar foils his plan and later kills him. Shankar eliminates Rasheed, Vishram and Selvar Mani. He also succeeds in making Swami his puppet. Shankar has also realised that Chief Minister Madan Rathore (Deepak Shirke) was really behind everything; Rasheed and everyone else were merely pawns. This results in legal action against the Chief Minister. The closing scenes show a woman approaching Shankar for justice to a fake encounter of her husband by the police and calling Shankar the Sarkar, while Subhash is busy with family. 

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Emperor Tod Spengo (Jon Lovitz), with General Afir (Thalmus Rasulala) at his side, takes over a small planet at the edge of the galaxy populated entirely by idiots, and renames it after himself. He has all the resources of the planet engaged to create his "Super Death Ray Laser" to destroy Earth, thus making Spengo the greatest planet in the Universe. When Spengo peeks at the laser's planned point of impact (a Southern California suburb), he beholds housewife Marge Nelson (Teri Garr) and instantly falls in love. Using his Magnobeam (a giant magnet), he kidnaps Marge and her husband Dick (Jeffrey Jones) on their way to their 20th-anniversary weekend, hoping to make Marge his wife. Dick and Marge get separated on Spengo: Marge is sent to the lap of luxury, waited on by servants with fish or dog heads, while Dick is thrown into a dungeon. In his cell, Dick meets the rightful king of Spengo, Raff (Eric Idle), who gives him plans for his son, called the White Bird, leader of a band of rebels out in the desert. In the meantime, Spengo finds that his advances towards Marge are failing, so he tries to read Dick's mind in order to discover the secret to her heart before having him executed. Upon witnessing Dick's devotion to Marge, Spengo's interrogator, Sibor (Wallace Shawn), has a change of heart and helps Dick escape. Despite the stupidity of his captors, Dick is soon discovered and forced down a garbage chute to the sewers, where he encounters a pack of carnivorous mushroom-like creatures called Lub-Lubs and is forced to run for his life. Dick manages to escape the sewers and steal an escape pod, and winds up crashing in the desert, where he meets the rebels led by King Raff's son, Sirk (Dwier Brown), and daughter, Semage (Kathy Ireland), all of them dressed as 6-foot-tall birds, although such creatures are not naturally found on Spengo. At first, the rebels don't trust Dick; but when Dick reveals that he shared a cell with Raff and that he is on their side, their attitude quickly changes, and Dick rises to the rank of war leader. Using what little resources he can scrounge up, he devises a plan to sneak back into Spengo's palace and save Marge. In the meantime, General Afir, the only intelligent person among Spengo's forces and resentful of his emperor's antics, believes that Dick and Marge are the key to ending Spengo's rule, so he switches the love serum meant for Marge with water and informs her of his intentions to recover Dick. However, Spengo overhears Afir's plan and has him placed in the barrel of the laser, to die when the weapon is fired at Earth. While Spengo's wedding with Marge is prepared, a detachment of Spengo's soldiers go into the desert to finish the rebels, but find their camp deserted, and one by one they fall victim to a Light Grenade, labeled "pick me up" (which disintegrates anyone picking it up) left on Dick's pallet. Simultaneously, Dick and the rebels approach Spengo's fortress inside a large wooden bust of Spengo, which Spengo has brought into the chapel, and in the midst of the wedding ceremony the rebels emerge from the Trojan bust. As fighting rages in the castle, Spengo retreats to his lab with Marge and prepares to fire the laser at Earth. Dick and Tod clash with swords, but neither gains the upper hand. Marge manages to free herself and help Dick throwing Spengo into the sewers, where he is devoured by the Lub-Lubs. At the last second, Dick and Marge manage to shut down the laser, saving Afir and the Earth. With Tod deceased, Raff is reinstated as the rightful king, and he reverses the polarity on the Magnobeam to send Dick and Marge back to Earth. Upon arriving home, Dick and Marge proceed to show their son (Danny Cooksey), daughter (Suzanne Ventulett), and her boyfriend Carl (Michael Stoyanov) slides (including an image of their space journey to Planet Spengo) from what they claim is "Santa Barbara". To end their anniversary, they share drinks on the roof, watching the stars. 

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The film shows an eight-minute drive through Paris during the early hours (05:30) of a Sunday morning in August (when much of Paris is on summer vacation), accompanied by sounds of a high-revving engine, gear changes and squealing tyres. It starts in a tunnel of the Paris Périphérique at Porte Dauphine, with an on-board view from an unseen car exiting up on a slip road to Avenue Foch. Well-known landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe, Opéra Garnier, and Place de la Concorde with its obelisk are passed, as well as the Champs-Élysées. Pedestrians are passed, pigeons sitting on the streets are scattered, red lights are ignored, one-way streets are driven up the wrong way, centre lines are crossed, and the car drives on the sidewalk to avoid a rubbish lorry. The car is never seen as the camera seems to be attached below the front bumper (judging from the relative positions of other cars, the visible headlight beam and the final shot when the car is parked in front of a kerb on Montmartre, with the famous Sacré-Cœur Basilica behind, and out of shot). Here, the driver gets out and embraces a young blonde woman as bells ring in the background, with the famous backdrop of Paris. 

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Andrew Larabee teaches at a school run by his headmaster father Matthew, a traditional man who disapproves of his son's unconventional methods despite their popularity with the students. Andrew's special interest is archaeology, and he hopes to earn his father's respect through this field of study. During the school holidays, Andrew bicycles to ancient ruins in Sussex where he believes a statue of Pan (which had been left behind by a Roman legion) can be found. Such a discovery would enable him to publish and subsequently wed Letitia Fairchild, his fiancée of five years, who insists he earn a promotion before she marries him. At the site he encounters the Gallini family traveling circus, which has been ordered to pack up and leave by the local police since the land is now property of dairy farmer Lord Elmwood. The five Gallini brothers and their cousin Selena mistake Andrew for a contractor, and when he tells them he doesn't mind if they remain, the Gallinis halt their "pulling up stakes". Lord Elmwood arrives and threatens to remove both Andrew and the circus, but Andrew realizes he's a former fellow Oxford University student with a checkered romantic past. Chastened by Andrew’s subtle threat of blackmail, Lord Elmwood agrees to give Andrew and the Gallinis a week before he starts construction on the land. Shortly after he has begun his excavations, Andrew discovers a tunnel on the site and burrows through its ceiling and directly into the middle of the lion act during a performance. His amusingly masterful way with the animals impresses Selena, who tells him he is a born entertainer, and she teaches him to juggle. With ringmaster Antonio suffering from laryngitis, Andrew is coaxed into replacing him at the matinee. Unfortunately, Letitia and Andrew's brother Dudley arrive to check on Andrew's progress and decide to attend the circus, so Andrew is disguised as Antonio. Due to needing a lot of padding to fit into Antonio's clothes, Andrew is given a RAF safety life jacket with a whistle, smoke and emergency flares -- all of which cause havoc in mid-speech and marking Andrew as a natural clown. After the performance, Selena is overcome with jealousy at the sight of Andrew and Letitia together, and later follows Andrew into the tunnel. Andrew does some more digging, inadvertently causing a cave-in which traps both of them overnight. The following morning, Angelina the chimpanzee, who is tied to a stake by a rope, attempts to get a banana which has been thrown to her out of her reach. As Angelina pulls on the rope, the stake moves, causing the earth around it to collapse and revealing Andrew and Selena. When Antonio and his sons discover them, they accuse Andrew of improper behavior with their Selena and, to save the family honor, insist the two wed on the following Saturday. Angelina the chimpanzee then finds the Pan statue Andrew was seeking and conceals it in her cage. Andrew convinces Selena his obligations at school override their wedding plans and he returns home, where he discovers his father has promoted him and Letitia is ready to accept him as her husband -- with their marriage having also been set to take place on the following Saturday. On the night before the ceremony, Selena brings Andrew the statue of Pan which Angelina had given to her. Because Andrew's class has performed well in their last test, the Headmaster has promised them a treat. However, when the boys choose to go to the Gallini Circus, which is due to arrive, Andrew refuses to take them there. So the boys disappear on the day of the wedding, and Andrew tracks them back to the circus. His father and brothers discover the statue of Pan, and Dudley mentions that a circus was in the field in which Andrew was searching for Pan. Accompanied by Letitia and her father, Andrew's father and brothers follow him to the circus where they find Andrew being chased by the Gallini brothers. When Andrew is confronted by two upset families, he finally clears things up and admits that he loves Selena. Following the wedding ceremony, Andrew and Dudley leave the church arm-in-arm with Letitia. After the happy couple - Dudley and Letitia - drive away on their honeymoon, Matthew gives his blessing to Andrew, saying that Andrew was carrying on a fine family tradition (one of their ancestors, Thomas Larabee, had been a jester in the court of King James the First). A very happy Andrew then leaves with his bride-to-be Selena and the equally happy members of the Gallini family. 

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Laurel and Hardy are spending a night in with the kids. The fathers are playing checkers and pool, but are constantly distracted by their own incompetence and by their children, who are constantly bullying each other and trying to stay up late. The film begins with Stan and Ollie playing a game of checkers, and Stan Jr. and Ollie Jr. playing with blocks. They smash a vase and are sent to bed. Ollie Jr. is pushed into a full bath and chases Stan Jr. out (leaving the taps and the shower on), but slips on the soap causing part of the ceiling to crash onto the pool table. Stan and Ollie are furious and rush upstairs, only to find their junior versions in bed pretending to be asleep. When both boys ask for a drink of water, Oliver opens the door to the by-now flooded bathroom, and the water gushes out from the bathroom in a torrent, bowling them over in a drenched heap as the film ends. 

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A group of terrorists have stolen the World's Coalition's satellite. The Confidential Mission Force (CMF) sends two of its agents, Howard Gibson and Jean Clifford, to investigate. They first infiltrate a museum, where they find out "Agares" is behind the plot of stealing the satellite. As soon as they grab the disc with the information, one of the Agares leaders prevent them from getting the disc. After they retrieve the disc, they are sent to a train traveling through the mountains. There, they find out that Agares has kidnapped satellite programmer Irina Mikhailova and forced her to reprogram the satellite. Howard and Jean manage to rescue Irina but are stopped by the General, whom they eventually defeat in a fierce firefight. With the help of Irina, CMF locates Agares Headquarters, where the satellite control is being transported to a submarine. Howard and Jean manage to make it through the base and find the Agares Ringleader, who plans to use the satellite to destroy the CMF's headquarters. After being defeated, the leader uses a self-destruct sequence on Agares's base and escapes in a submarine. If the player succeeds in the final quick time event, the two agents manage to use the satellite to destroy the submarine and deep- six the Ringleader. Howard and Jean then escape, thus saving the rest of the CMF from being destroyed. 

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Fame Douglas, founder and CEO of DOATEC was killed at the end of the 20th century. He was renowned as the sponsor of the legendary Dead or Alive World Combat Championship. After his death, the world began to become chaotic. In the middle of the chaos, it was announced that the second Dead or Alive World Combat Championship will be held. The purpose and significance of the tournament changed after Douglas' death. The promoter of the second Dead or Alive Championship, who is fond of conflicts and jealous of the strong, is responsible for Douglas's death. The new promoter, Victor Donovan, is more than a corrupt mastermind, but a man of pure evil. His involvement in the tournament began to bring a sense of terror to the world, resulting in the infamous tengu disaster. Set less than a year later after the original tournament, a tengu known as Gohyakumine Bankotsubo, or just Tengu, threatens the human world's peace and stability. Kasumi, who won the first tournament was captured by the DOATEC Super-human Development project. Kasumi escapes, but her clone "Kasumi X" was created while she was being held captive. Kasumi's brother Hayate, previously injured by Raidou, was also captured and returns from being an unwilling subject of DOATEC's bio-weapon experiment Epsilon left to die in the esoteric Black forest of Germany as "Ein" after the experiment was a failure. Ryu Hayabusa (from Ninja Gaiden) enters the tournament vowing to seek and destroy the evil tengu. Though a dangerous, suicidal task for any ordinary man, Hayabusa owes it to himself and to mankind to confront his fate. Hayabusa tries to warn other competitors like Jann Lee about the dangers of the tournament but finds them unwilling to backdown so he proceeds to knock them out of the tournament. He meets Ein, who is actually the missing Hayate suffering from amnesia. During their fight, Hayabusa defeats him and restores some semblance of his memory. Eventually, Hayabusa comes face to face with the evil Tengu. He defeats Tengu, winning the tournament. 

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Seven warriors are challenged to head on a quest to find three powerful elements of Sun, Moon and Stars. Whoever brings the elements to the Potion God will be rewarded the legendary Almighty Potion and all its magical powers.Gunbird 2 Dreamcast manual. 

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Seven-year-old Jennie (Heather Miller) has been abandoned by her parents and left in the care of her aunt Bee (Petula Clark) and uncle Jim (John Castle). Jennie is treated poorly by her two elder cousins, and taking her lead from the story Peter and Wendy, she runs away from home with her younger cousin Joe (Christian Henson). She finds shelter in an abandoned London townhouse occupied by a gang of young ruffians, and becomes the equivalent of Wendy, role-playing "mother" to the Lost Boys. An old woman named Edith Forbes (Cathleen Nesbitt, in her final screen performance) befriends the girl. 

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Each episode follows a similar pattern and centers around a group of five animal friends: Uniqua, Pablo, Tyrone, Tasha, and Austin. The characters introduce themselves in their backyard before imagining a new location to enter. The group is often presented with multiple dilemmas along the way to accomplishing a specific goal or priority or may be challenged with a significant single obstacle to defeat or problem to solve. After season one, there is usually a villain in the episode, mainly played by one of the Backyardigans (thus another Backyardigan plays the role of the hero), but the villain of the episode always reforms in the end. The program also follows a musical format. It features multiple musical numbers performed in the style of a different genre and sung throughout an episode regarding whatever imaginary predicament in which the characters have situated themselves or perhaps a challenge they have met, every episode opening and concluding with a particular song. The adventures get more advanced after the first season. When the Backyardigans have achieved their mission or defeated any disadvantages, the fantasy sequence fades, restoring actuality to the setting of the episodes as the closing song is sung, the characters scurrying to their houses for a snack after one or two’s stomach(s) growl. The main character or characters then opens the snack host's house door, fence, or around the corner, and shouts the main catchphrase for the last time and then closes the door. The picture then is lifeless, with some background bird noises often heard as iris closes, ending the episode before the credits roll. 

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Jake Wilkinson (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), an 18-year-old attending the (fictional) in California boarding school, has not been home to Larchmont, New York for any holidays since his mother died and his father remarried 10 months later. A few days before Christmas Eve, his father offers to give him his vintage 1957 Porsche 356 if he is home by 6:00 PM Christmas Eve for Christmas dinner. Initially, Jake had traded in his airline ticket to New York City for two tickets to Cabo San Lucas to take his girlfriend Allie Henderson (Jessica Biel), who is also from New York. When she declines, Jake reconsiders his father's deal and retrades the tickets back to New York. Allie agrees to ride with him. With his trio of goons, Eddie Taffet (Adam LaVorgna), Jake's nemesis and rival for Allie's affections, leaves Jake in the desert dressed as Santa Claus to punish him for not getting an exam cheat sheet (a deal they had that Eddie secretly sabotaged on purpose). While Jake is stuck in the California desert, Eddie ends up giving a reluctant Allie a ride to New York after she thinks Jake bailed on her again. Jake has only three days to get to Larchmont if he wants the car. He stumbles upon Nolan (Andrew Lauer), a simple-minded thief who is driving stolen kitchen goods to his dealer near New York. A police officer named Max (Sean O'Bryan) pulls them over in Red Cliff, Colorado for speeding, so Jake lies that Nolan is his elf, Snowpuff, and they're donating the goods to the children's hospital. The officer invites them to accompany him to North Platte, Nebraska to help him win back his wife Marjorie (Lesley Boone). Meanwhile, Allie convinces Eddie to stay the night at a novelty hotel in a Bavarian village, the Amana Colonies in Amana, Iowa. They are unknowingly standing beneath mistletoe when a news anchor is reporting live. Jake sees them kiss while he's waiting at the bus station in Nebraska and develops a scheme to convince the bus driver to drop him off at the Bavarian village. He obtains a cooler and a slab of meat, writes Allie's name and address on the cooler, and convinces the whole busload that the cooler needs to be delivered to a little girl at the hospital in the Bavarian village for a transplant. After Allie lets Jake into her and Eddie's room, Eddie walks out of the shower only clad in a towel and Jake assumes he and Allie have slept together. Jake and Allie make up until Jake blurts out that Eddie prevented him from getting home by 6 PM. Upset that Jake cares more about the car than about her, Allie storms onto the bus and takes Jake's seat. Jake and Eddie drive off. Eddie suddenly becomes jealous realizing that Jake will get Allie and the Porsche if he makes it home, and throws Jake out of his car somewhere in Wisconsin. Jake decides to enter a Santa Claus race for a chance to win the $1,000 prize to buy an airline ticket to New York. Eddie is arrested after insulting (and possibly doing more) two policemen dressed as Christmas trees patrolling the race. While registering for the race, Jake meets a nice man named Jeff Wilson, whom he barely beats in the race. But en route to the airport, the taxi driver informs Jake that Jeff is actually the mayor of the town; he usually wins the race every year and uses the prize money to buy food for the impoverished. Jake feels bad and gives the money to the Mayor. Jake talks to his sister, who arranges for an airline ticket for him from Madison, Wisconsin. The airline doesn't let him board because he has no photographic identification, so he stows away in a dog kennel on a cargo aircraft with a large dog named Ringo. From the airport he hides on a train, tries to hitch a ride in a car, then steals a one-horse open sleigh from the local parade. When he reaches his street, he apologizes to Allie and they make up. Jake rides the sleigh home, arrives at 5:59 PM, and intentionally waits a few minutes to go inside so he isn't in time to get the Porsche. When his father offers it to him anyway, he refuses. He also finally accepts his stepmother. The Wilkinsons and Allie get into the sleigh just as the parade arrives and join the procession. 

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Mike Enslin is a writer of non-fiction works based on the theme of haunted places: Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards, and Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles. They prove to be best-sellers, but Enslin feels some guilt at their success, privately acknowledging that he does not believe in the paranormal and supernatural elements he investigates. Arriving at the Dolphin Hotel on 61st Street in New York City, Enslin is intent on spending the night in the hotel's infamous Room 1408 as part of his research for his next book, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms. He is met by the hotel's manager, Mr. Olin, who fills him in on the room's morbid history – 1408 has been responsible for 42 deaths, at least 12 of them suicides, over a span of 68 years. While remarking he does not believe there are ghosts in 1408, Olin insists there is "something" that resides inside, causing terrible things to happen to anyone who stays within its walls for anything but the briefest periods of time. As such, he has striven to keep the room vacant during his tenure as manager, a period of nearly 20 years. Olin also reveals that, due to the superstitious practice of never recognizing the 13th floor (the room is listed as being on the 14th), it is a room cursed by existing on the 13th floor, the room numbers adding up to 13 making it all the worse. Enslin is secretly affected by Olin's remarks and evidence, but his determination to not appear superstitious and follow through with his research wins out. He demands the right to stay in the room by threatening legal action against the hotel. Olin pleads with Enslin to reconsider, believing that a skeptic would be highly susceptible to the room's powers. At Enslin's continued insistence, Olin reluctantly leads him to 1408, unwilling to accompany him farther than the elevator landing on the 14th floor. Enslin's problems with Room 1408 begin before he even sets foot through the door; the door itself initially appears to be canted to the left. After looking away and back, the door appears perfectly straight. Then, after looking a third time, it appears to be crooked again, except now to the right. Chalking the experience up to Olin's attempt to manipulate him, he girds himself and enters the room. Enslin spends 70 minutes in Room 1408, dictating his experience into a handheld tape recorder. Almost immediately, his train of thought takes unwelcome and chaotic turns — he compares it to being "stoned on bad, cheap dope" — and he experiences bizarre visual hallucinations. A breakfast menu on the night-stand changes languages to French, then Russian, then Italian, then a woodcut of a wolf eating a screaming boy's leg. The patterns on the wallpaper seems to shift and warp, and the room's pictures transform into grotesque parodies. Enslin feels his feet sink into the carpet like quicksand, and he hears a nightmarish voice on the room's phone chanting terrifying phrases: "This is nine! Nine! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!" The room itself begins to melt, the walls and ceiling warping and bowing inward. Enslin senses a dangerous, otherworldly presence coming for him. In desperation, he sets his "lucky" Hawaiian shirt on fire while wearing it, breaking the room's spell long enough for him to escape. Stumbling out into the hall, another hotel guest douses him with ice. When the other guest looks inside the room and is tempted to enter, Enslin warns him not to, claiming the room is "haunted". The door slams shut. After his ordeal, Enslin gives up writing altogether. He has acquired various physical and psychological problems stemming from his brief stay in the room. He notes to himself (as Olin expressed earlier) that there are no ghosts in 1408, because ghosts were once merely humans, while the entity he encountered was horrifically inhuman. In the end, Enslin sleeps with his lights on, has removed all his house's phones, and always draws the curtains before dark; he cannot stand the shade of yellow-orange at sunset that reminds him of the light inside Room 1408. 

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When Fred wins the big prize on the "Make A Deal or Don't" game show, he and Wilma plan a vacation with Barney and Betty to Count Rockula's spooky castle in Rocksylvania which has now been turned into a tourist resort. Unfortunately, during the trip, Fred and Barney accidentally stumble across Rockula's old laboratory, where his unfinished Frankenstone monster sleeps, and forget to close the window when they leave the lab. Lightning subsequently strikes the machines in the lab, and provide Frankenstone with life. Frankenstone awakens Rockula (who has been asleep for the past five hundred years, thus explaining his disappearance) from his secret crypt, and the two scare everyone out of the hotel, except for the Flintstones and the Rubbles, who had gone to bed early due to jet lag. Rockula and Frankenstone eventually discover the Flintstones and Rubbles, and Rockula mistakes Wilma for his long-lost bride and vows to make her his, even if it means killing Fred. Wilma initially mistakes Rockula for the hotel manager, Mr. Silika, who had dressed up as Rockula, for quite some time until Rockula turns into a bat in front of her. As Fred, Barney and Betty discover Wilma's absence and begin searching for her, Wilma flees and a long cat-and-mouse chase ensues all over the castle. Rockula finds and corners Fred, but is scared off by Barney, wearing a werewolf mask. The couples eventually end up cornered inside the Rubbles' room. Fred challenges Rockula to a fight, using a bat statuette as a weapon, but the statuette turns out to actually be the switch for the trapdoor to Rockula's laboratory, which Rockula and Frankenstone were unknowingly standing on. As Fred raises the statuette to strike, both Rockula and Frankenstone fall through the trapdoor, and the Flintstones and Rubbles escape and return to Bedrock. Wilma invites Betty and Barney to stay for dinner and leaves the three of them in the living room while she goes into the kitchen to cook. Unbeknownst to them, Rockula has flown (in the form of a bat) all the way from Rocksylvania to Bedrock. Flying through the kitchen window, he begs Wilma to marry him, promising her a life of luxury if she agrees. Winking at Fred, Barney and Betty (watching surreptitiously from the doorway), Wilma agrees to consider marrying Rockula, then immediately begins nagging him about chores, upkeep of the house, and his bad habits. Aghast, Rockula (apparently forgetting that most chores would be left to the servants) changes back into a bat and flies off, claiming to need another 500 years of rest. Barney laughs and lauds Wilma for defeating Rockula by telling him "the real truth about married life". 

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Ford Fairlane is seen sitting on a beach smoking as the film opens. A flashback initiates, showing a roaring crowd at a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado given by fictional popular heavy metal band The Black Plague. Lead singer Bobby Black makes an eccentric entrance down a zip-line from Creation Rock onto the stage and begins performing. Shortly into one of the band's songs, Bobby Black collapses on stage and dies. After the lead singer of The Black Plague is murdered onstage, shock-jock Johnny Crunch, an old friend who came west with Fairlane, hires Ford to track down a mysterious teenage groupie named Zuzu Petals, who may have a connection to Black's death. Soon after hiring Fairlane, Crunch is electrocuted on the air. The world's hippest detective soon finds himself trading insults with ruthless record executive Julian Grendel, a clueless cop and former disco star, Lt. Amos, a merciless hit man named Smiley and countless ex-girlfriends out for his blood. Aiding and abetting Fairlane is loyal assistant Jazz and a hip record producer at the head of a bizarre lineup of suspects, victims, beautiful women, and a koala as he finds himself hip-deep in the case of his life. The MacGuffin of the film is three data CDs which, when read simultaneously, detail the illegal dealings of Julian Grendel, who was getting rich from bootlegging his record company's music and murdered Bobby Black when he found out Black had acquired the CDs with the incriminating evidence. Both of Fairlane's beloved possessions, his house, and his car, are blown to bits, courtesy of Grendel. The first disc was with Colleen Sutton, the second with Zuzu Petals, and the third disc was hidden under the star for Art Mooney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is later revealed that Grendel killed Bobby Black and Johnny Crunch, as he considered them both greedy and stupid because they wanted more money for their involvement in pirating CD's to sell to the highest bidder, making the music industry corrupt. However, Fairlane kills Grendel by setting him on fire with a flammable alcoholic milkshake. Jazz leaves Fairlane, knowing how ungrateful he is for everything that has happened. Smiley shows up and plans to kill Ford, but not before revealing that he killed his young neighbor's [the Kid's] father. Ford distracts him and kills Smiley with a sleeve pistol. Jazz and Ford decide to reconcile, while the Kid decides to join their detective agency. Ford wins a million dollar radio contest and buys a yacht. He sails away with Jazz, the Kid and the koala bear. They're all now one big happy family. 

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After writing a series of articles about a pedophilia scandal, journalist Ji-won receives threatening calls on her cellular and subsequently changes her number. Her close friend Ho-jung, who is infertile, and her husband Chang-hoon invite Ji- won to move to their empty house in Bang Bae that is newly furnished. When Ho- jung's daughter Young-ju answers an anonymous phone call on Ji-won's new cell phone, the girl screams and begins to show a disturbing attraction for her father and jealous rejection towards her mother. Meanwhile, Ji-won receives more mysterious phone calls and sees a teenager playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. After investigating her phone number, Ji-won discovers that the original owner of the number, Jin-hee, had vanished and that the two subsequent owners of the number had died mysteriously in unusual circumstances. Her further investigation about Jin-hee reveals that the teenage schoolgirl was obsessively in love with a man who had broken up with her. Before Jin-hee vanished, Ji-won found out that Jin-hee was in a relationship with Chang-hoon. Ho-jung found out about the affair and confronted Jin-hee. During their confrontation, Jin-hee mocked Ho-jung's infertility problem and told Ho-jung that she was pregnant with Chang-hoon's baby. In a struggle between the two women, Ho-jung accidentally pushed Jin-hee down the stairs and killed her. Ji-won also discovers that Jin-hee's dead body was hidden inside one of the walls at the house she is staying at. However, before Ji-won can go out for help, Ho-Jung arrives and knocks her out. Ho-jung reveals that aside of Jin-hee, Ho-jung is also jealous of Ji-won, who had let her egg be used in in vitro fertilisation so Ho-jung could conceive Young-ju, which technically made Ji-won the true biological mother of Young-ju. It is also revealed that Ho-Jung stages suicide for Chang-hoon, making it seem that he is guilty of Jin-hee's death, so he commits suicide in the bathtub. Ho-jung plans to burn the body of Jin-hee and the unconscious Ji-won with gasoline. However, Jin-hee's spirit awakens and takes revenge on Ho-jung, thus saving Ji-won. The film ends with Ji-won dropping the cursed cell phone into the ocean, which rings after entering the water. 

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Narabedla Ltd. is a corporation that is owned by aliens and run by their human agents. The main character is an accountant who specializes in doing the tax returns of singers, dancers, and other performers. He had been majoring in singing himself, with a minor in accounting, when he comes down with an adult case of mumps. Mumps makes one's glands swell. It can ruin a singing voice by making the glands in the throat swell and it can make a man's testes swell, rendering him impotent. The main character notices some of his clients disappearing. Their disappearances follow a similar pattern. They are talented, but bad reviews or other kinds of bad luck have prevented them achieving full success. They experience a period of no gigs. They confide in the main character that they have signed mysterious contracts for a long, lucrative tour of private gigs. Then they disappear. What his clients are not aware of is that their tour will be for aliens, on alien planets. The main character does some amateur detective work. He begins to suspect that the President of the mysterious Narabedla corporation is involved. He gets knocked out and wakes up on an alien planet dozens of light years away from Earth. His imprisonment is quite pleasant. There is a small community of Earth artists, some of whom are perfectly happy spending the rest of their lives performing before appreciative alien audiences. The main character decides that he will try to escape. Category:1988 American novels Category:1988 science fiction novels Category:Aldebaran in fiction Category:American science fiction novels Category:Novels by Frederik Pohl 

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Keawe, a poor Native Hawaiian, buys a strange unbreakable bottle from a sad, elderly gentleman who credits the bottle with his fortune. He promises that an imp residing in the bottle will also grant Keawe his every desire. Of course, there is a catch. The bottle must be sold, for cash, at a loss, i.e. for less than its owner originally paid, and cannot be thrown or given away, or else it will magically return to him. All of these rules must be explained by each seller to each purchaser. If an owner of the bottle dies without having sold it in the prescribed manner, that person's soul will burn for eternity in Hell. The bottle was said to have been brought to Earth by the Devil and first purchased by Prester John for millions; it was owned by Napoleon and Captain James Cook and accounted for their great successes. By the time of the story the price has diminished to fifty dollars. Keawe buys the bottle and instantly tests it by wishing his money to be refunded, and by trying to sell it for more than he paid and abandoning it, to test if the story is true. When these all work as described, he realizes the bottle does indeed have unholy power. He wishes for his heart's desire: a big, fancy mansion on a landed estate, and finds his wish granted, but at a price: his beloved uncle and cousins have been killed in a boating accident, leaving Keawe sole heir to his uncle's fortune. Keawe is horrified, but uses the money to build his house. Having all he wants, and being happy, he explains the risks to a friend who buys the bottle from him. Keawe lives a happy life, but there is something missing. Walking along the beach one night, he meets a beautiful woman, Kokua. They soon fall in love and become engaged. Keawe's happiness is shattered on the night of his betrothal, when he discovers that he has contracted the then-incurable disease of leprosy. He must give up his house and wife, and live in Kalaupapa--a remote community for lepers--unless he can recover the bottle and use it to cure himself. Keawe begins this quest by attempting to track down the friend to whom he sold the bottle, but the friend has become suddenly wealthy and left Hawaii. Keawe traces the path of the bottle through many buyers and eventually finds a Haole of Beritania Street, Honolulu. The man of European ancestry has both good and bad news for Keawe: (a) he owns the bottle and is very willing to sell, but (b) he had only paid two cents for it. Therefore, if Keawe buys it, he will not be able to resell it. Keawe decides to buy the bottle anyway, for the price of one cent, and indeed cures himself. Now, however, he is understandably despondent: how can he possibly enjoy life, knowing his doom? His wife mistakes his depression for regret at their marriage, and asks for a divorce. Keawe confesses to her his secret. His wife suggests they sail, with the bottle, to Tahiti; on that archipelago the colonists of French Polynesia use centimes, a coin worth one fifth of an American cent. This offers a potential recourse for Keawe. When they arrive, however, the suspicious natives will not touch the cursed bottle. Kokua determines to make a supreme sacrifice to save her husband from his fate. Since, however, she knows he would never sell the bottle to her knowingly, Kokua is forced to bribe an old sailor to buy the bottle for four centimes, with the understanding that she will secretly buy it back for three. Now Keawe is happy, but she carries the curse. Keawe discovers what his wife has done, and resolves to sacrifice himself for her in the same manner. He arranges for a brutish boatswain to buy the bottle for two centimes, promising he will buy it back for one, thus sealing his doom. However, the drunken sailor refuses to part with it, and is unafraid of the prospect of Hell. "I reckon I'm going anyway," he says. Keawe returns to his wife, both of them free from the curse, and the reader is encouraged to believe that they live happily ever after. 

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In Zoot Suit, Luis Valdez weaves a story involving the real-life events of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial -- when a group of young Mexican-Americans were charged with murder -- resulting in the racially fueled Zoot Suit Riots throughout Los Angeles. In the play, Henry Reyna (inspired by real-life defendant Hank Leyvas) is a pachuco gangster and his gang, who were unfairly prosecuted, are thrown in jail for a murder they did not commit. The play is set in the barrios of Los Angeles in the early 1940s against the backdrop of the Zoot Suit Riots and World War II. As in the play, Edward James Olmos portrays El Pachuco, an idealized Zoot Suiter, who functions as narrator throughout the story and serves as Henry's conscience. 

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The plot of the book concerns Yambo (full name: Giambattista Bodoni, just like the typographer Giambattista Bodoni), a 59-year-old Milanese antiquarian book dealer who loses his episodic memory due to a stroke. At the beginning of the novel, he can remember everything he has ever read but does not remember his family, his past, or even his own name. Yambo decides to go to Solara, his childhood home, parts of which he has abandoned following a family tragedy, to see if he can rediscover his lost past. After days of searching through old newspapers, vinyl records, books, magazines and childhood comic books, he is unsuccessful in regaining memories, though he relives the story of his generation and the society in which his dead parents and grandfather lived. Ready to abandon his quest, he discovers a copy of the original First Folio of 1623 among his grandfather's books, the shock of which causes another incident, during which he relives his lost memories of childhood. The final section of the book is, therefore, a literary exploration of the traditional phenomenon whereby a person's life flashes before him or her, as Yambo struggles to regain the one memory he seeks above all others: the face of the girl he loved ever since he was a student. Umberto Eco includes myriad references to both scholarly and popular culture in the book (notably the Flash Gordon strips) and has drawn heavily on his own experiences growing up in Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy. Like other Eco novels, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana boasts abundant intertextuality. 

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Abbey includes the following paragraph to introduce this book: The hero of the story is John Vogelin, a New Mexico rancher whose land is about to be condemned by the United States Air Force, who want to use his land to expand a bombing range. He is the last holdout among the several people whose land the Air Force wants, and he refuses to move. The story of his resistance to being thrown off his land and his death is told through the eyes of his grandson, who is visiting the ranch for the summer. 

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Set in the world of TV and small screen production, the main character is a screenwriter. Rush is given the chance to write for the "A-Team" movie, a step up from the world of Zombie, flesh-eaters! 

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Many of the other characters in the book refer to Jonathan Troy as the golden boy. He's a senior at the local high school and they call him that because he has everything: Looks, intelligence and talent. But he is not an easy character for the reader to like. We're given an insight into the mind of a teen-age boy, where he holds nearly everyone he meets in contempt—especially his father, Nathaniel, and his favorite teacher, Feathersmith. The book is written as a series of different events, almost none of them related. Jonathan has had an ongoing relationship with one girl, Etheline. But once he finally succeeds in seducing her, he begins to lose interest, especially when she starts talking about marriage. A chance meeting with a new girl in town, Leafy, gives him new inspiration and he begins pursuit of her. Abbey also introduces the only major gay character in any of his eight novels, Phillip Feathersmith. Abbey doesn't come right out and say he's gay, but he describes his "fairy-flower" hands, talks about what a pink little fellow he is, and Jonathan calls him "Fairysmith" in his own mind. Feathersmith shows an attraction to Jonathan that is not very subtle. Most of the story is set in a western Pennsylvania town called Powhattan. It was actually based on the town near where Abbey grew up, Indiana, Pennsylvania. Abbey even uses some of the names of businesses in Indiana in the 1940s for his story. The Blue Star Restaurant becomes the Blue Bell Bar that is the business under the apartment Jonathan Troy shares with his father. There are many hints of the greatness Abbey would fine tune in his later works, including his love of the desert (Jonathan longs to go there); his deep passion for women and beer; and above all his sense of humor. One of the memorable characters in the book is Fatgut, a pathological liar who Jonathan seems close to. But for most of the book you figure Jonathan has no friends, mostly because he's too full of himself. You hear his every thought, and it's all very brutally honest. The key secondary character of the story is Jonathan's father, Nathaniel Troy. He is a Communist living in 1950s America, right about the time of the Red Scare. He receives almost daily threats to his well-being. Jonathan avoids his father as much as possible, living a mostly independent life. But the climax of the story comes when some town drunks decide they're going to make the Communist kiss the American flag. Another character in the novel is Red Ginter, who would also be a character in The Fool's Progress. In this book, Ginter is the neighborhood bully who has tormented Jonathan most of his life. In the latter book, he's a member of a baseball team who hits the game-winning home run, but then refuses to run the bases. There was a real person named Earl "Red" Ginter who was part of Abbey's early life and seems to be the inspiration for these characters. There is no nobility in Jonathan Troy. Having access to his thoughts kills any affection you might be able to muster. He's rude to nearly everyone he meets, especially his father. Once he's made love to Etheline, he looks at her again with fresh perspective and decides he hates her body. And when given an opportunity to stand up for something noble, Jonathan usually turns and heads in the other direction. One of the techniques Abbey uses in this book is devote a few chapters to printing notices in the local newspaper. It provides a slice of small-town life and in at least one case, relates to the plot. 

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This book is the story of a cowboy, Jack Burns, who lives as a transient worker and roaming ranch hand much as the cowboys of old did, and refuses to join modern society. He rejects much of modern technology, prefers to cut down any fence he comes across, will not carry any kind of modern identification such as a driver's license or Social Security card, and refuses to register for the draft. When his friend Paul Bondi, who is a philosophical anarchist, is jailed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for refusing to register for the draft, Burns deliberately gets himself arrested in an attempt to break his friend out of jail, but winds up on the run from the law himself. Bondi has been tried and is awaiting transport from county jail to federal prison but refuses to escape with Burns. As police have discovered that Burns has also never registered for the draft, authorities are intent on sending Burns to trial and eventually federal prison for violation of the Selective Service Act of 1948. Burns eventually escapes reluctantly leaving his friend behind. After a brief stop to say goodbye to Paul's wife, Jerry, and son, Seth, Jack heads into the Sandia Mountains, just east of Albuquerque, on horseback. The police mount a manhunt and pull out all the stops to capture Burns, including helicopters on loan by the Air Force. If Burns can scale the mountain range, he figures he can escape under the cover of the forest on the other side. The police know this as well, so they position themselves to prevent that from happening. 

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John W. "Jack" Burns (Kirk Douglas) is a veteran of the Korean War who works as a roaming ranch hand much as the cowboys of the old West did, refusing to join modern society. He rejects much of modern technology and carries no identification, such as a driver's license or draft card. He cannot even provide authorities a home address because he just sleeps wherever he finds a place. As Burns crosses a highway into a town in New Mexico, his horse Whiskey has a difficult time crossing the road, confused and scared by the traffic. They enter town to visit Jerry (Gena Rowlands). She is the wife of an old friend, Paul Bondi (Michael Kane), who has been jailed for giving aid to illegal immigrants. Jack explains his dislike for a society that restricts a man on where he can or can't go, what he can or can't do. To break Bondi out of jail, Burns decides he himself needs to get arrested. After a violent barroom fight against a one-armed man (Bill Raisch) in which he is forced to use only one arm himself, Burns is arrested. When the police decide to let him go, he deliberately punches a cop to get himself re-arrested. He is now facing a probable sentence of a year in jail, which allows him to see Bondi, with a purpose of helping him escape. The town is a sleepy border town and the cops are mostly bored, occasionally dealing with minor offenses. The Sheriff, Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau), has to compel them to pay attention to their duties at times. Joining Bondi in jail, Burns tries to persuade him to escape. He tells Bondi he couldn't spend a year locked up because he'd probably kill someone. Burns defends Bondi from the attention of sadistic Deputy Sheriff Gutierrez (George Kennedy), who picks Burns as his next target. During the night the inmates saw through one of the jail's bars using two hacksaw blades Burns hid in his boot. The deputy summons Burns in the middle of the night and beats him. Upon returning to his cell, Burns tries to persuade Bondi to join him in escaping, but Bondi, nearing the end of his sentence, and having a family and too much at stake to become a fugitive from the law, decides to remain. Burns breaks out by himself and returns to Bondi's house, where he picks up his horse and some food from Bondi's wife. After the jail break, the Sheriff learns that Burns served in the military during the Korean War, including seven months in a disciplinary training center for striking a superior officer. He also received a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross with oak leaf clusters for his valor during battle. Burns heads for the mountains on horseback with the goal of crossing the border into Mexico. The police mount an extensive search, with Sheriff Johnson and his Deputy Sheriff Harry (William Schallert) following him in a jeep. A military helicopter is brought in, and when the aircrew locates Burns, they relay his location to the sheriff. Whiskey is repeatedly spooked by the helicopter so Burns shoots the tail rotor, damaging it and causing the pilot to lose control and crash land. Deputy Gutierrez also chases Burns. He sees the horse and is preparing to shoot when Burns sneaks up, knocking him unconscious with his rifle butt. Burns leads his horse up impossibly difficult, rocky slopes to escape his pursuers, but the lawmen keep on his trail, forcing him to keep moving. Surrounded on three sides, Burns' horse refuses at first to climb a steep slope. They finally surmount the crest of the Sandia Mountains and escape into the east side of the mountains, a broad stand of heavy timber, with the lawmen shooting at him. The Sheriff acknowledges that Burns has evaded their attempts to capture him. Burns is shot through the ankle during his dash to the timber. Burns tries to cross Highway 66 in Tijeras Canyon during a heavy rainstorm on Whiskey but the horse gets spooked by the traffic and blinded by the lights. A truck driver strikes Burns and Whiskey as they are attempting to cross the road. The sheriff arrives and, asked by the state police if Burns is the man he has been looking for, says he can't identify him, because he's never seen the man he is looking for up close. Both seriously wounded, Burns is taken away in an ambulance and Whiskey must be euthanized. 

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In 1866, remorseful former border raider Glyn McLyntock (James Stewart) is scouting for a wagon train of settlers to Oregon. While he is checking the trail ahead, he rescues Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy) from being lynched for stealing a horse. Cole, who says the horse is "not exactly stolen", thinks he has heard of McLyntock, but does not pursue the subject. One of the pioneers in the wagon train is the eligible Laura Baile (Julie Adams). That night, they are attacked by five Shoshone Indians and Laura is wounded by an arrow. McLyntock and Cole go out to deal with the Shoshones and Cole saves McLyntock's life in the process. McLyntock welcomes Cole, but Jeremy Baile (Jay C. Flippen), the leader of the settlers, does not trust Cole and does not believe that a man can change from bad to good. When they reach Portland, Oregon, Laura remains there to recover. Cole also leaves the party saying that he wants to go to California to find gold. The rest, including McLyntock, go on to establish a settlement in the wilderness after making arrangements with a man named Tom Hendricks (Howard Petrie) for the supplies they need for the winter to be sent on later ("the first week in September"). That night, they have a big party and meet a professional gambler named Trey Wilson (Rock Hudson). With winter fast approaching and the supplies at least six weeks late, they begin to worry when the food runs low. McLyntock and Jeremy go back to Portland to investigate. They find that a gold rush has inflated prices enormously. Laura and Cole are working for Hendricks and have no intention of going to the settlement. Jeremy is not happy about his daughter being Cole's girl. Meanwhile, Hendricks has decided to sell their supplies for a much higher price to a mining camp. McLyntock secretly hires some men to load the supplies to take back to the settlement, but Hendricks finds out, instigating a shootout. Cole and Trey both side with McLyntock. When they are pursued, McLyntock sets up an ambush. Hendricks and some of his gang are killed, and the rest are driven off. On the way to the settlement, some of the miners show up and offer an exorbitant sum for the supplies. The hired men begin thinking about commandeering the wagon train. Cole cannot resist the temptation of all that money and double-crosses his friend, but does not kill him. That proves to be a fatal mistake. McLyntock tracks them down and retakes the supplies with the assistance of Jeremy, Laura, and Trey. Cole brings some miners, but they are beaten off in a climactic gunfight at a river. McLyntock fights and kills Cole, and the current takes his body away. At the end, they reach the settlement with the supplies and it is apparent that Laura and McLyntock are now a couple. 

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In 1896, Jeff Webster (James Stewart) hears of the Klondike gold rush and he and friend Ben Tatem (Walter Brennan) decide to drive a herd of cattle to Dawson City, Yukon. On the way, he annoys self-appointed Judge Gannon (John McIntire) by interrupting a hanging in Skagway, so Gannon unilaterly confiscates his herd. After signing on to assist in taking supplies to Dawson, Jeff and Ben return to town to take the animals back to make them a part of the caravan and take off with Gannon and his men in hot pursuit. After crossing the border into Canada, Jeff uses a few well-placed warning shots to persuade Gannon's gang to give up the chase, but the judge promises to hang Jeff when he returns thru Skagway. When Jeff gets to Dawson, he finds a widespread benign lawlessness, and ignores it as none of his business. He auctions off his herd for $2 per pound ($/lb today) to new arrival Ronda Castle who had hired him, a saloon owner and one of Gannon's business associates, when she outbids Hominy, Grits and Molasses, co- owners of the local hash house. Both Ronda and French-Canadian gamine Renee Vallon are strongly attracted to Jeff. Now looking for their next adventure, Jeff and Ben use $40,000 ($ million today) of their proceeds to buy an existing gold claim, soon doubling their money. Ronda sets up a saloon in partnership with Gannon, who begins cheating the miners out of their claims. Gannon and his gunmen show up to grab their share (and then some), making Dawson much more dangerous. Jeff stays out of it, instead planning to sneak out by river while Gannon is otherwise occupied. However, Gannon is tipped off when Ben buys extra coffee for the long trip; his men kill Ben and wound Jeff, finally forcing him to take sides. Jeff calls Gannon out to settle the dispute man to man, but the villain arranges an ambush. Ronda rushes out to warn Jeff and is fatally shot in the back. Jeff kills Gannon in the ensuing gunfight and the rest of his gang agree to leave town, rather than fight all the fed-up longtime residents, who have finally found their courage and have armed themselves to directly face and resist the gang. 

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The book begins a short time after Easter, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Mary Mary, a detective sergeant from Basingstoke, is being transferred to Reading, Berkshire. She hopes to be paired up with Detective Chief Inspector Friedland Chymes, a member of the Detective's Guild with multiple appearances in the fictional magazine Amazing Crime Stories, but instead is paired up with Jack Spratt at the Nursery Crime Department, who is most famous for giant killing and for arresting the serial wife killer Bluebeard. Jack himself is living with his second wife, Madeleine, who moonlights as a photographer for certain prestigious events, and their five children: Pandora, Ben, Stevie, Jerome, and Megan. Madeleine is trying to rent the spare room in the house, but without much success. Jack's first wife could only eat fat and soon died. The day after Mary is transferred, Humpty Dumpty is discovered dead outside of his residence at Grimm's Road, apparently having fallen off the wall. Jack's Superintendent, Briggs, introduces him to Mary Mary at the crime scene. Jack interviews some possible witnesses, including Wee Willie Winkie, the insomniac neighbor; Ms. Hubbard, the owner of the boarding house where Humpty stayed; and Prometheus, the titan from Greek mythology, the latter of which Jack offers to rent the spare room in his house to. They all describe Humpty as a nice egg, who generally kept to himself. Upon inspection of Humpty's room, Jack and Mary find some odd clues: several shares in Spongg Footcare, Reading's Footcare empire, a picture of Humpty with a girlfriend in Vienna, and a 28-foot-long strand of hair. They later interview Laura, Humpty Dumpty's ex-wife. When Jack returns home, he tells his mother that the painting of the cow his mother wanted to sell was fake and he only received some beans in return. Mrs. Spratt retorts that she had the painting valued years ago and that the auctioneer probably knows how incredibly valuable it is. She is so upset that she throws the beans out of the window, and Jack sees them bury into the ground by themselves. There is another interview at a hospital called Saint Cerebellum's, this time with mad scientist doctor Quatt, and on their way to meeting her Jack notices the serial killer the 'Gingerbread Man'. Jack had been chasing the killer in previous cases and had to witness his colleague having his arms ripped off, only for the local newspaper, the Gadfly, to say that Chymes had caught the 'Gingerbread Man'. The interview with Dr. Quatt only reveals that she was Humpty's doctor. The conversation ends with Quatt showing Jack and Mary her latest experiment, a kitten's head sewn onto the body of a haddock. A few days later, Jack and Mary team up with Superintendent Baker, Ashley (an alien who can only speak binary code) and forensic scientist Gretel Kandlestyck-Maeker. Humpty Dumpty's wife is found to have committed suicide at the biscuit factory, but it is suspected that she has been murdered. The woman had jumped into a chocolate vat and was sliced by the machines, but when the employees stopped the machine, it was too late. The police of the Nursery Crime Division find a suicide note, but Mary concludes that it was written by his wife by comparing it to her diary. The proof of suicide also comes from a witnessing employee who saw her jump in, and no one pushed her. A few days later, the team are called in to investigate the recent death of Wee Willie Winkie. He was attacked with a large weapon, supposedly a broadsword, and a fifty-pound note was found in his hand, showing he was blackmailing the killer. Jack has his own problems at home when his mother calls him to sell a painting of a cow. Jack next interviews Randolph Spongg. Humpty had been investing in their failing businesses in hope of a breakthrough, which never came. The interview take place in Spongg's strange house, where doors lead nowhere, some rooms revolve around and go-kart races inside the house itself are held commonly every year. They next interview Lola Vavoom, who lives in the room next to Humpty Dumpty in the block of flats. At the end of the conversation she tells them that Humpty's shower had been running for a whole year, before his death. The two men break the door, and Baker finds a skeleton in the shower. The man is identified as Tom Thomm, son of a local flautist. His skin has been washed away by the shower water, and his skeleton is badly damaged. There are also five bullet holes in the shower curtain, three at waist height and two at foot height. Gretel says that when Tom was shot in the waist, he fell on the floor, where the two other shots hit his head. Jack then realises that Tom's killer was Humpty's wife: the three waist-height shots would have been head height for Humpty. His wife killed herself as she was sorry for what she had done. Jack is interviewed by colleagues, and Friedland Chymes appears and warns Spratt that if he does not give the case to Chymes, he will be fired. Jack accepts that that may happen, and refuses to give the case away. Later on, they have a meeting with another industrialist, Solomon Grundy, whose wife is Rapunzel. When she takes off her hat and her hair falls to the ground, Spratt and Mary remember the 28-foot- long strand of hair found in Humpty's bedroom. Solomon shows them into a room with an abnormally large amount of security: a person going in has to wear no shoes in case of being detected. In the centre of the room is a puzzle piece, the sacred gonga, held in unbreakable glass. It has magic powers which he reveals to Jack and Mary by putting them on each side of the room. When Jack thinks of a number, Mary says it out loud. This was so amazing that Solomon decided to put it on display for everyone in Reading. When an inspector is put in charge of watching Spratt and the others, Humpty's car, a Ford Zephyr, is found. As the car is about to be taken away, Jack realises that the front headlight has been removed and there is a wire feeding through it. He orders everyone to run away and the car explodes. Spratt and Mary then interview a woman who was divorced from Humpty. The woman claims that she killed Humpty out of jealousy by putting three poisonous tablets in his coffee. Jack then tells her that Humpty was shot, not poisoned, and that she is therefore innocent. When Jack returns home, he notices a huge crowd of people around the house. His mother says that the beans that were thrown from the window had grown into a huge stalk. She has even made arrangements for the magical celebrity, the Jellyman, to see it when he arrives in Reading. Jack is told by Gretel that Humpty Dumpty was shot by someone from behind, which smashed through his shell and burst the albumen, sending a shock which cracked the whole egg. When Mary, Spratt and the inspector enter Humpty's house, they wonder how Humpty got his money: he had no proper job and all he did was invest in failing companies. Their question is answered when they discover on the sofa a goose that lays golden eggs. On a further inspection, a giant verruca is found on another sofa. Jack then remembers a strange doctor, Horatio Carbuncle, who always made living things like the verruca. He killed Humpty Dumpty because he was investing in a company which got rid of verrucas. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought that she had killed him, and Wee Willie Winkie was killed because he was blackmailing him. Jack is not sure about Tom, but thought the evidence is good enough. Mary then calls him into the next room and shows him the body of Carbuncle, shot dead. Jack then remembers the verruca and the puzzle piece. If Randolph was the killer, he would have the best motive so that he could put the verruca under the floor of Solomon's room. Hundreds of people would come in bare-footed to see the puzzle piece, and the verruca would give off a gas which would infect all the people's feet with verrucas. They would turn to the only foot care product, made by Randolph Spongg, and the failing company would make thousands. Jack is told that the man who shot Humpty was employed by Solomon Grundy, but Jack knows that Solomon is not the killer and sets off to find the real one, Randolph Spongg. Arriving at the house, the butler asks him to remove his mobile. The room becomes strange and starts to revolve. Jack enters a normal room with a mirror next, but he cannot see himself in the reflection. He sees Randolph and Lola come out of a trapdoor, and turns round, but sees no one. Randolph explains that this is his magic. Lola says that she is happy that Humpty is dead in the Ford Zephyr and reveals that she loves Randolph. Behind the two, the butler comes out of the trapdoor, but to Jack's surprise the butler is behind him. Jack is confused as he is standing in front of a mirror and cannot see his reflection, but that of Randolph and Lola, and the butler is the only one with a reflection. Randolph puts a sandwich with tin foil inside on a table and shines a lamp on it. He explains that the sandwich will crumple up under the heat, and when the corners of the tin foil touch, the house will explode. When they leave, Jack realises that it is not a mirror at all, but glass. He breaks it and finds a room on the other side, made exactly backwards. The butler had a twin brother who appeared on the other side, looking like he had a reflection. Jack stops the bomb, but the killers escape in a plane. After talking to Mary, he thinks that the car bomb was not intended for them, but for Humpty. He gets this idea because Lola said that Humpty died in the Zephyr, so was hoping he would be killed in it. Moments later, Jack is informed by Gretel that Humpty survived the shot, and that instead, he hatched, because Dr. Quatt secretly fecundated him in vitro. The team are thrown into confusion as they try to find a giant chicken which they think Humpty hatched into. Spratt and Mary then return to his house to attend the arrival of 'his eminence' the Jellyman. When he looks at the stalk, Jack has an urge to climb it. The only people in the house are a few police officers, Spratt, Mary, the Jellyman, Madeleine and their children. The few police officers stationed outside the house are alerted, and one by one, a strange creature kills them all. The monster bursts into the house in an attempt to kill the Jellyman. Jack leads him outside and climbs the stalk, followed by the beast. When they are high up in the sky, the monster rips Jack off and he falls all the way through the garden shed. When Jack regains consciousness, he sees a chainsaw. He is reminded of the axe and takes it and begins hacking down the beanstalk, aiming for the beast to fall down. It jumps onto him and tries to kill him, but a voice behind it makes it stop. Dr. Quatt appears in front of Jack and tells him that she is the killer, whose aim was to kill the Jellyman all along. She is about to kill Jack, but Mary knocks her unconscious. The monster runs to her aid, picking her up and running away. Mary tries to kill them, but Jack tells her not to bother. The beanstalk topples over from when Jack tried to cut it down, crushing the monster and Dr. Quatt. The end of the book is the explanation. Scientists take away the goose that lays golden eggs and cut it open to find out what makes it lay these eggs, but are disappointed to find only find a normal goose's insides. Jack explains to Mary that Humpty, although a good egg, had many friends and many enemies. His previous wife thought she killed him by poison, his wife thought she killed him by shooting him in the shower, Solomon Grundy thought he killed him by hiring a man to shoot him, Randolph Spongg and Lola Vavoom thought they killed him with a car bomb. But the real killer was Dr. Quatt, who injected him with the monster when he was having his appointments with her. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought she killed him. Wee Willie Winkie saw Humpty hatch and knew it was her and blackmailed her. She made the monster follow her, and when she met him, the beast killed him with its claw. Her plan was to kill the Jellyman and used Humpty as a host to create the monster. She only wanted to kill one person, but a lot of others were the victim of her powerful, and short wrath. 

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At a convenience store early in the morning, Juan (Gastón Pauls), a con artist, successfully scams the cashier, and attempts the same scam again on the very next shift. Marcos (Ricardo Darín), who has been observing him, pretends to be a police officer and takes Juan away. As soon as they are far enough, Marcos reveals he is a fellow con man. Juan asks Marcos to teach him his ways, because his father, who is also a con man, is in jail and he needs to raise money quickly in order to bribe a judge into reducing his father's sentence from ten years to six months. Soon after, an elaborated scheme seemingly falls into their laps: Sandler (Oscar Nuñez), a former business associate of Marcos, needs his help to sell counterfeit copies he made of some rare stamps called "The Nine Queens". The potential mark is Gandolfo (Ignasi Abadal), a rich Spaniard facing deportation and desperate to smuggle his wealth out of the country. Gandolfo has no time to fully check if the stamps are authentic but he hires an expert (Leo Dyzen) to do a quick check and is satisfied. He offers $450,000 for the stamps, with the exchange agreed to take place that evening. In the intervening time, the stamp expert demands a cut from Juan and Marcos, as he knows the stamps were forged. The fake stamps are then stolen out of Juan and Marcos' hands by thieves on motorcycles who, unaware of their value, toss them into a river. To salvage the scheme, Marcos approaches Sandler's widowed sister Berta (Elsa Berenguer), the owner of the real stamps, who agrees to sell them for $250,000. Marcos can put up $200,000 and asks Juan to contribute the remaining $50,000. Juan becomes suspicious since Marcos seems to need exactly the amount that Juan has saved up, but as the $50,000 is not enough to help his father, Juan reluctantly agrees. They buy the real stamps and go to Gandolfo's hotel, but he says he has changed his mind and will now only buy the stamps if he also gets to sleep with Marcos' sister Valeria (Leticia Brédice), a hotel employee. Valeria's price is that Marcos must confess to their younger brother Federico (Tomás Fonzi) how Marcos cheated him out of their family inheritance in Italy. After he does so, Valeria spends the night with Gandolfo, who pays for the stamps with a certified check the next morning. Juan and Marcos rush to bank, but learn it has crashed, making the check worthless. A disillusioned Juan walks away as Marcos gets back into the bank. In the final scene, Juan arrives at a warehouse, where he greets the motorcycle thieves, Gandolfo, Sandler and his sister Berta, and his fiancée Valeria – revealing that the real con was to swindle Marcos out of $200,000 as revenge for all the times he cheated his family and his partners. 

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Germany's success in World War II has led to their invasion of the British Raj in 1947, resulting in the British Indian Army being decisively defeated. Rather than struggling for independence from the Crown, Gandhi and his friend Jawaharlal Nehru find themselves in the position of resisting Nazi occupation using the techniques that were successfully employed against the British. Although Nehru has a general concept of the inherently immoral nature of Nazi ideology, Gandhi thinks they still can be persuaded, not heeding the warning from an Austrian Jew named Simon Wiesenthal, who was able to flee occupied Poland to India. The Nazis, however, led by Field Marshal Walther Model, are completely unmoved by Gandhi's strategy. They view themselves as a master race and have no moral qualms about killing those who resist non-violently (or even those who do not resist at all, if they are of a certain race). In the end the movement collapses as it proves unable to deal with the savagery of Nazism. 

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